Concept, direction, cinematography, montage, sound design: Christina McPhee 2009-2010 christinamcphee.net

Ambient site sound composition remixed to Pauline Oliveros, Ghostdance, ©Deep Listening Publications, ASCAP). paulineoliveros.us/

Tesserae signal supersaturated carbon and methane topographies of our sister planet, Venus. In California, large scale energy landscapes, from natural gas and geothermal plants to water control, dominate huge landscapes. Could it be here that the first poetics of a future landscape of carbon saturation appear? What does living in a landscape of massive ambient atmospheric threat and beauty feel like? What is the deep connection between our footsteps, our voices, our machines, our breathing and our planet? How are we finding ourselves in these places both beautiful and dangerous, slipping on the sticky tiles of the tesserae, slimed with carbon-laden air, strange brews, and luscious sunsets...

Sites: Salton Sea Geothermal System, Imperial County, California; Ballona Wetlands, Los Angeles.

A tribute to Carolee Schneemann's MEAT JOY (1964) set in the oil fields and dipped in red paint.

a film by Christina McPhee
2010

Shot at the San Ardo Petroleum Fields, Monterey County, California; remix/appropriation of clips from MEAT JOY;
Concept, sound, photography and montage by Christina McPhee christinamcphee.net

Outtakes from the Tesserae of Venus photomontage suite
christinamcphee.net/photo/dynamic_sink_pulse.html
2009

with sound by Brian Mackern from the suite Temporal de Santa Rosa, tracks 10 and 12 netart.org.uy/xtcs/archivos.html

Direction,camera, editing, sound design: Christina McPhee
a naxsmash group production 2010

Ambient local sound with additional recordings from the series “Temporal de Santa Rosa,” by Brian Mackern netart.org.uy/xtcs/archivos.html

from the project “Tesserae of Venus” by CHristina McPhee 2009/10

christinamcphee.net/tesserae/index.html

2009

HDTV 1080i 1920 x 1080 16:9

3 minutes 20 seconds

In the Sacramento River Delta, amidst high tule reeds and exurban towns clinging to the edges of the vast flat waters, levees cache new alternative energy plants--natural gas. Shot at the Medanos plant, ludb.clui.org/ex/i/CA3463/ near Antioch and Pittsburg, California in spring 2009. Steam vents open breathing lungs, expanding and contracting, while water streams to cool the superheated turbines. Tesserae drawings spring from steam, lace, or laser-trace. Droplets like cilia explode from the center, tiling outwards, Fibonacci lilies. Volumes from a deep center, birth from turbines, white clouds placenta.


NOTES

I film on the fly at high tech energy installations. They are often under surveillance so you have to shoot at dawn, dusk or after hours on weekends, and never more than for a few minutes at a time. I shoot the video as a a kind of drawing. I use the camera as an on the fly editing tool by taking careful note how long to shoot. I work within a sense of the rhythm of the site, for example, in response to the rich sound rhythms from turbines. The shoots -- guerrilla-style as they are-- involve a poignant gesture or kairotic moment, which in urban slang may mean, not only the ‘perfect time or apt moment of luck,’ but in a strange reversal also  “is used to express gayness or queerness or just to make fun of people who you don’t  like as in “You are very kairotic” or  “go away you kairotic bastard” “ (urbandictionary.com). You can find the alternative and petroleum energy extraction going on, usually, in rejected or neglected natural areas, especially littoral or marginal streambeds, riverbeds, and swamps or sloughs in estuaries near the ocean-- usually because of the need for large amounts of watter for cooling (at geothermal and natural gas extraction sites). Waste or trashy places--often, where sensitive micro-ecologies involving cleaning and sifting wastewaters is a natural process. These sites are 'trash' or bastard-- hobody wants to think about them. But the bird, animal and inasect life there proliferates despite the technological incursion . Thus an assemblage of disconnected elements= things that shouldn't be together-- are thrown together-. At the point of contact is a kairotic moment--

TESSERAE OF VENUS : GHOSTDANCE

with music by Pauline Oliveros

Tesserae signal supersaturated carbon and methane topographies of our sister planet, Venus. In California, large scale energy landscapes, from natural gas and geothermal plants to water control, dominate huge landscapes. Could it be here that the first poetics of a future landscape of carbon saturation appear? What does living in a landscape of massive ambient atmospheric threat and beauty feel like? What is the deep connection between our footsteps, our voices, our machines, our breathing and our planet? How are we finding ourselves in these places both beautiful and dangerous, slipping on the sticky tiles of the tesserae, slimed with carbon-laden air, strange brews, and luscious sunsets...

Sites: Sacramento River Delta Natural Gas; Salton Sea Geothermal System; Ballona Wetlands and the California Aqueduct, Los Angeles.

Technical note: This single channel installation video* combines smaller films from the Tesserae of Venus series into a large ambient work enhanced by the music of Pauline Oliveros.

Concept, direction, cinematography, montage, sound design: Christina McPhee 2009 christinamcphee.net

Ambient site sound composition remixed to Pauline Oliveros, Ghostdance, ©Deep Listening Publications, ASCAP). paulineoliveros.us/

Apple HDV 1080i60 digital video 16:9 1920 x 1080
also available in extra long format: 3840 x 1080 or as a two channel work at 1920 x 1080 per screen.
Sound: multichannel (2 to 5) Dolby, 48 khz

For curatorial or screening inquiries please contact the artist: naxsmash at mac dot com

A naxsmash group production 2009

*TESSERAE OF VENUS (PART TWO) in production 2010

Premiere (beta version, without Ghostdance soundtrack): Tesserae of Venus Part One, installation videoISEA (Intersociety for Electronic Arts) Belfast, University of Ulster Art Gallery, Ireland, curated by Kathy Rae Huffman, July-August, 2009.

NOTES: Imagine conditions of carbon saturation in the atmosphere beyond 550 parts per billion. A new world is being born-- assembling in energy producing sites at the edges of cities, in the remote littoral regions, wetlands and scrublands, deserts and outliers. Tesserae appear and disappear in montage--stand-ins (metonyms) for the landscape of Venus, where tesserae, or complex ridged folds, are characteristic of the surface tectonics under the heavy weight of the carbon and methane entropic atmosphere of Venus. As if Venus arrives on Earth, the tesserae are post-digital traces of the atmospheric crisis on Earth. Where this crisis emerges is in the promise and desperation of the landscapes of new energy production. Alternative and petroleum energy extraction is usually going on in rejected or neglected natural areas, especially littoral or marginal streambeds, riverbeds, and swamps or sloughs in estuaries near the ocean. Usually this is because of the need for large amounts of water for cooling. Thus an assemblage of disconnected elements are thrown together. The point of contact is a kairotic moment—that's where the video montage is an attempt to condense these points and extract their sweetness, like squeezing fruit for a stream of luscious juice.