ON A MESA
2022
live performance, audio
25 min

link to 3 minute trailer

Description:

This performance is based on a dream that I transcribed into sculptural actions and spoken word. An early version of the piece was performed in Feb 2022 at Okno1/Lost in America gallery in Tulsa, OK with Suzanne Kite and Robbie Wing. The dream was filled with surrealist imagery about the oil/gas industry and geographies in the United States - tracking from LA to the midwest, and ultimately the east coast. Major themes in the project explore non-human animal kinships (scarabs/porcupines) and the tension between a spiritual vs. industrial relationship to the land.

Music: Kite + Robbie Wing

Choreography: Jonathan Durham, Kite, Robbie Wing

Live Sound Engineer: Robbie Wing

ON A MESA
2022
performance
ON A MESA
2022
performance
ON A MESA
2022
clear vinyl backpack, T-nut hardware, hard drive, inositol powder, porcupine quills, thermoplastic
ON A MESA
2022
butane torch, thermoplastic, porcupine quills
Just Make Cookies (Horizontal Assets)
2021
performance: crude oil, police batons, audio, tractor trailer 5th wheel, cookie dough, artificial sweeteners, propane heat
12 min excerpt of 30 minute performance

Just Make Cookies takes as its point of departure a 2017 incident in which a north Tulsa Community was told by the nearby Holly Refinery to “just bake cookies” in their homes to hide the smell of noxious gases being vented from the crude oil facility. This performance attempts to enact a response to that corporate absurdity.

+ Dance + Strategic Air Command
2019, (3 min video excerpt from projections)
helicopter cockpit, dance lasers, video projections
installation dimensions variable

Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, Auburn Alabama


-|- Dance -|- Strategic Air Command is a multi-part installation of video projections and an overturned, stripped-down helicopter cockpit outfitted with a green disco laser. The laser pulses inside the cockpit to the beat of the music in the projections - a compilation of concert, dance club and infrared police helicopter footage. When archiving the club videos I searched for instances when the intensity of the dance lasers etched or corrupted the CCD chip of the cameras, causing an entire line or cross section of pixels to be lost in the footage. The lost cross sections of visual information in the club scenes echo the cross hairs present in all the police footage, connecting each of these locations to the deliberate act of targeting and potential for escalating violence. 



Down Hole (Don't Die)
2017
text, audio, infrared and color video
3 min excerpt

footage of oil well bore hole inspections, arthroscopic joint surgery and FLIR video used to detect VOCs

Spread Thin
2017
helicopter wreckage, explosive residue, birdseed, rice
2 min 45 sec video excerpt dimensions variable
Spread Thin
2017
helicopter wreckage, explosive residue, birdseed, rice
Bemis Art Center: dimensions variable
On A Mesa (performance)
2022
performance, dancers: Suzanne Kite + Jonathan Durham
music: Suzanne Kite + Robbie Wing
On A Mesa
2022
performance: Suzanne Kite + Jonathan Durham
music: Suzanne Kite + Robbie Wing
On A Mesa
2022
performance: Suzanne Kite + Jonathan Durham
music: Suzanne Kite + Robbie Wing
Break Flows
2016
live performance, Bemis Art Center July 2016, two dancers, two ju jitsu players, two camera operators, audio
2 min excerpt of 30 minute performance