Unspoken Frequncies
2024-
Project Statement
Unspoken Frequencies is an image and sound-based investigation of the interruptions of The Natural. Stemming from Bruno Latour’s “Facing Gaia,” I am referring to “The Natural” as a non-neutral arbitrator that represents non-domesticated nature and human’s natal tie to the Earth. The Natural has a flow. A flow that teaches us how to be tender if those who dare to listen. One that carries through the land, the wind, and the water. A flow that has been diminishing because of human desire to expand, to control, for wealth to selfishly gain rank in the society that breaks our natural form(s). What does it mean to interrupt the flow and erase it for the desire of divine rule? Through my practice, I have begun to unravel the godlike rule of humans over nature, the land, the water, and the space where voices cannot be heard. Photographing the spaces that the ones above us have determined to be “nature”, I am navigating how human interruption and its erasure of histories and ecologies manifest themselves for personal and capital gain. In my search, I have realized the forces I am seeking are invisible. The search for the divine, the search for what divinity means. Through the land, through the machine of man, does divinity change in meaning; does the divine become less holy?
Those who define the confines of nature perpetuate its downfall; interrupting, erasing, and obstructing. But, nature fights back; overtaking, retaking, yet being overtaken. If we come from The Natural but have evolved to view ourselves above it, are the same ones controlling nature watching over us? Surveilling our very existence to silence those who speak against it. To define the new thought of nature, they had to build barriers around all that is not (us).
Working in photography and sound as landscaping tools, I am focusing on Landscapes in conversation with both “traditional” landscapes and a more poetic approach to the land. The history of landscape imagery has a deep tie with expansion, control, and justification. Through the early years of the United States, painters, like those of the Hudson Valley School, depicted landscapes that played into the ideals of manifest destiny. Photography became a part of this canon as a way of surveying. Through its ability to replicate the spectacle, photographs became visual evidence of the “true American Landscape.” Eventually, it became the reason to control, to have jurisdiction over a landscape, defining exactly where it is allowed to be. I am working to turn the camera back towards the operator; surveilling the (hu)man’s hand in nature and the disruption it causes. Ultimately, I am calling into question the significance of the oppression and control of The Natural and its lasting effects on our society. Using The Natural as an allegorical figure provides direct evidence that human jurisdiction and dominance have detrimental effects on it. The desire for human control over nature and its ties to capitalism becomes evident as the exponential destruction of the planet quickens. Engaging in conversations about how humans are affected by the restrictions and separation of nature and how similar tactics are applied toward citizens, vastness of the plain and the search for signs of control and surveillance are guiding principles in my investigation