Phytovision
video installation
2023
Sharing the Same Breath at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center
curated by Kaytie Johnson
Phytovision is a long-term body of work which focuses on destabilizing the primacy of human vision. As both a practice of perception and a plant-oriented media, Phytovision brings attention to modes of plant sensing which intersect and surpass the capabilities of the human sensorium.
The videos for this installation focused on small weeds and ruderal species, recorded in the Midwest region of the United States. The videos were recorded at a high frame rate to present a slower experience of time, and filtered to include only the portion of light spectrum visible to plants. The videos are presented across multiple screens, to cast light-based media from different vantage points. The seating platform played a geophone recording of the forest floor, played back as tactile vibration. A small poetry chapbook accompanied the videos, with new and reprinted poetry from land of words.
Related
Exhibition Announcement, "Sharing the Same Breath at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center Embraces the Universality of Kinship," Hyperallergic, August 23, 2023.
“land of words: a collection of poetry by plants,” Forty-Five - A Journal of Outside Research, forty-five.com, Vol 3, Dec 6 2018. Review by David L. Hays.
Photos Courtesy of John Michael Kohler Arts Center.
