A Solvent History

Protests

A Solvent History: Protests (1963-2020) 

2020
16″ in x 9″ in
digital print on metal

This image is a composite of online archives images to generate image architectures representing various facets of U.S. society, culture and related undercurrents that counteract and inform the insidious nature of so-called American Exceptionalism and the American Dream. Our history is solvent and morphs contingent on the reader, the distribution apparatus and the author. Hypermedia, “open source” wikis and the evolution of image sharing technologies have accelerated and fractured our visions of these histories. Protests 1963 – 2020, is a compilation of every major protest conducted in the United States since the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom protest of 1963 where Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his historic I Have a Dream speech.

Specters

A Solvent History: Specters

2020
HD Video
Single channel or 22-channels
continuous loop

Specters compiles the photographic history of collapsed civilizations through digital animations. The selected collapsed civilizations range from 8000 BCE to 1922 CE, and represent societies fallen through colonization, assimilation, disease, famine, reformation, war and geographic aggression. The images, extracted from online archives, are layered to reconstruct a vision of the architecture, art history and visual documents through shifting image architectures.