Drawing I (Prometheia), 2018, single-channel video installation.
In a darkened gallery space, the low rumblings of an underwater current continually rise and fall in a
one-minute loop. On the floor, in the center of the gallery, a video is projected downward onto the surface
of a 4x5x2’ platform. As the sound of water builds, an image of rippling black liquid emerges on the
surface of the platform. Bubbles form and begin to circle (...)
Drawing I is an unsettling vision, it conjures up an allusion to hydromancy (the practice of
reading signs in the linear patterns formed by moving bodies of water). Though, as a form of
divination one could dismiss this ominous spectacle as merely a reflection of the fear and
anxieties that underscore our current era of rapid technological advancement, global economic
disparity, and looming ecological disaster.
(...) The low rumblings of the underwater current continue to build as small clusters of bubbles spiral on
the inky black surface. The vision turns. A vortex forms and a drain is revealed as the liquid is voided.
Drawing I fades to a silent blackness, and begins anew (...)
The formation of lines in Drawing I are the result of material forces that have been set in motion.
In this sense, Drawing I is less a charting of futurity than it is an immanent unfolding of elements
which have been suspended in a digital format. Still, the evolution of this mercurial surface
evokes a sense of corporeality. As a result, this allusion prompts a number of unanswerable
questions: Can Drawing I be read as symbolic letting go or a cathartic casting-out of some bête
noire? Could this spectacle be understood as a metaphor for a post human dissolution of the
boundaries between man, nature, and technology? Or, as alluded to earlier, does Drawing I simply
lend itself to a recollection of the affective complexities that arise when facing both the fear and
the desire to know what is to come?