LAMENT @ DIGITAL TRASH, RUTGERS
DIGITAL TRASH, a group exhibition at Rutgers-Camden Center for the Arts that asks us to confront the environmental costs of digital technologies, is up through December 7. My collaborators Abraham Avnisan and Judd Morrissey and I have an immersive installation in this show called LAMENT; Or, The Mine Has Been Opened Up Well, which features a soundtrack by Mark Booth.
LAMENT is an interactive augmented and virtual reality work comprising poetry, documentary video and sound—the result of research into global networks of copper exploitation, technology, salvage, and myth. The crux of the piece is a historic miners’ strike of 1913 that took place on Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula, site of the US’s first metal boom—and bust.
I am indebted to a gaggle of friends who contributed translations in 27 languages to one act of the piece called Pennies from Nether: an augmented-reality chorus inspired by the little red songbook of the Industrial Workers of the World: Demosthenes Agrafiotis and Eleni Stecopoulos, Alexis Almeida, Varda Avnisan, Omar Berrada, Berenika Boberska, Daniel Borzutsky, Ariel Brice, Brandon Brown, Brita Butler-Wall, Don Mee Choi, Francesca Chubb-Confer, Theo Clinkard, Simon Creek, Dubravka Djuric, Rachel Galvin, Edgar Garcia, Marco Giovenale, Silvia Guslandi, May Huang, Mark Jeffery, Chenxin Jiang, Matthew Johnson, Karri Kokko, Román Luján, Iulia Militaru, Elina Minn, Feliz Lucia Molina and Frank Molina, Nathanaël, Maya Nguen, Sawako Nakayasu, Julia Pello, Jocelyn Saidenberg, Claudio Sansone, Marina Santos, Haun Saussy, and Lynn Xu.
Digital Trash raises questions about what counts as “trash” and how digital technology is impacting the environment. The artworks in this exhibition force the audience to confront the environmental ramifications of our gadgets. It is also a call to action: How can we create more sustainable digital practices?
Digital Trash is curated by James Brown, Director, DiSC and Robert Emmons, Associate Director, DiSC. The exhibition includes work by: Abraham Avnisan, Judd Morrissey and Jennifer Scappettone (USA); Katharine Behar (USA); J. R. Carpenter (UK); Martin Howse (UK); Chris Jordan (USA); Joana Moll (GER); Steve Rowell (USA); Times of Waste Research Team: Flavia Caviezel, Mirjam Bürgin, Anselm Caminada, Adrian Demleitner, Marion Mertens, Yvonne Volkart, Sonia Malpeso (SUI); and Pinar Yoldas (TUR).
Funding for this exhibition and programming has been made possible in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts; New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts; The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation; Subaru of America Foundation; and Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.