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A ROOM IN WHICH THE ONLY WALL IS IN THE MIDDLE
10-channel sound, 16mm, video. Icelandic midge sputtered in ionized 24k gold, live performance
Experimental Digital Arts, UCLA; Los Angeles, California

In the summer of 2013, while shooting 16mm film of a Malaise Trap (ubiquitous trap for gathering flying insects), I temporarily lost my vision when a small flying midge landed right in my eye. The sting forced me to stop the camera, everything went black as I squeezed the muscles in my forehead. It was a complex situation, a fly caught in the eye of a filmmaker making a documentary about an insect trap.... The Malaise trap is considered by initiated entomologists as a passive entity, because it gathers its bounty of flying insects while standing still, intersecting with their flight paths, which as it seems, are largely determined by currents of wind which flow through the immediate surroundings, interweaving with higher-level weather patterns. We were shooting near Iceland’s most powerful fumarole, and standing near to it with my eyes closed made me realize just how loud this breathing entity actually was. It was at a volume which made the deep roaring sound inseparable from the force which was apparently creating it. I wasn’t just listening to the center of the earth, but encountering it as it spilled out into this completely empty, frigid landscape. Having finally removed my gloves I was able to pry my eye open for a moment and remove the still intact specimen. 

Minuscule, around two millimeters in size, the midge lay dead in my cupped palm. Wings and legs out, perfectly intact: a question, the one which formed the underlying intent of this exhibition slipped into my awareness without pressure or extended effort: 

What does it mean to reject the worldviews which study life through its carcass?