White Almond

White Almond (3 views), 2001. Wood, melamine, Plexiglas, handles, hinges, wheels, w 35” x d 35” x h 86”, destroyed

White Almond is a framing device not unlike a camera. It is a catalyst, an exploratory probe, a gauge, and, at times, something akin to Ikea furniture. Upon first inspection, it may lack a certain immediate specificity of function, yet indistinctness is in fact one of its engineered traits. It is approachable at its core, having intentionally absolved its fixed command of space and strict clinical nature to become a non-threatening, mobile, and simultaneously stylish addition to a space. The primary usage is, but not limited to, the formation of a dialog between an individual and the space of a wall or closet. It has less in common with a litmus test, in which a single factor determines the outcome, than the projective Rorschach test and its stress on series and cumulative interpretations.

Special thanks to Eric Zeszotarski of Solid Studio

Tools

Tools, 2001, c-print, h 10” x w 24”

I have been photographing in a Medical Examiner office and a morgue over the past ten years. After witnessing my first autopsy, I realized that nothing in these places was going to help prepare me for the inevitability of death. Nevertheless, from that first moment on, every time I went to the morgue I found new and compelling reasons to keep returning.

The scholar Philippe Aries said “...death has become unnameable. Everything henceforth goes on as if neither I nor those who are dear to me are any longer mortal. Technically we admit we might die... but really at heart we feel we are non–mortals. And surprise! Our life is not as a result gladdened!” In a way my inoculation has worked. Through direct experience I have introduced something into my life that will not make anyone exempt from death, yet it has made the prospect of its occurrence incredibly more natural and acceptable.

Device

Device (Mütter Museum), 2001, gelatin silver print, h 20” x w 16”

This device was found in a back storage room of the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia, PA. It was most likely utilized to measure skull sizes in support of 19th century theories regarding skull shape and intelligence; however, at some point it became divorced from its informative labeling. Accordingly, it cannot be identified with absolute certainty.

The Swimmer

The Swimmer, 2001, video, color, sound, total running time 24 minutes and 37 seconds (three stills from film comprised of 401 images)

The Swimmer is a layering of inaccessible performance, automatically formatted video, and exceptionally thorough documentation. Ten Hours from now I will begin a seventy-five mile, three day, walking expedition from my apartment in Brooklyn to upstate New York to participate in an event called the Brewster Project. This will be my very own hallucinatory trip upriver into the heart of darkness, during which I will be continually broadcasting to the world – at maximum volume from speakers attached to my body – the entirety of Martin Sheen's hypnotic interior monologue extracted from Francis Ford Coppola’s film Apocalypse Now. Digital images will be produced systematically throughout the trip. Then, upon completion of the journey, these stills will be coupled with Sheen’s monologue to serve as a new and unexpected accompaniment for a well-worn audio track.

The piece is called The Swimmer, in honor of Burt Lancaster's itinerant character in the 1968 film of the same title. The Swimmer is one of the most effectively appalling of all quest films, perhaps even more so than Apocalypse Now, because its calamities are sited in an innocuous suburban landscape during the height of the Vietnam War.