Date of Submission

Spring 2015

Academic Programs and Concentrations

Studio Arts

Project Advisor 1

Kenji Fujita

Abstract/Artist's Statement

The apricots are scattered on the floor implying (past) movement and something performative. One supposition as to their placement creates a direct relationship between the ‘fallen fruit’ and the two towering tripods, which, before proper consideration, exist as surrogate trees. The vertical movement of one’s gaze from fruit to tripod-tree reminds one of the formicarium (Latin formica ‘ant’, -arium ‘place’) where the red harvester ant tunnels, up and down, confined to a single plane of movement-a single plane of work- amidst the artificial habitat’s two panes of glass. The formicarium however, is nowhere to be seen; its existence evinced through artifact and video documentation. Two video monitors sit on shelves slightly lower than what is typical. Their cords, not quite umbilical yet necessary as a means, protrude from incisions in the wall far above, physically connecting the videos to their unseen site of creation. Behind the wall is a studio where two sink lines of absurd length formally echo the cords of the monitor. The studio has been abandoned, its doors locked and windows boarded. One is granted a view into the room through a removed architectural corner- its aperture too thin to physically cross. The sink lines attach from water valves in an abandoned bathroom to a freestanding sink located in an abutting space where both the lights and faucet have been left on. The drains have been repurposed as window displays and the corked sink basin is left to overflow in an intentional act of endangerment. The disconcerting event of the flood suggests a relation with the short wall of sandbags that stands idle and isolated within the gallery space. The separateness of the sandbags removes them from any functional purpose of wartime fortification or flood control, reminding the viewer of the artifice of the entire situation at hand. The great mass of the sandbags functions as an artifact of work, that is to say, as the positive complement to the hollow passages formed by the ants in the formicarium. Returning to the wall, on a third shelf to one side of the monitors sits a pyramid of sand and below it, three additional sand hills formed from its avalanche, amounting as it were to a crude hourglass.

(note: a softish referent TBA is an anagram derived from ants are the biters off)

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