Long Haul

7a11d Festival, Toronto, 2006, Plug In ICA, June 2006
Informal Architecture: Walter Philips Gallery, Banff, 2007
Informal Architecture, Plug In ICA, Winnipeg, 2008

Long Haul was a performance work, which took place in the downtown area of Toronto and Winnipeg. Accompanied by a motorized tree, I combed the streets for fragments of natural material like leaves and branches found lying on the sidewalks or streets. These fragments were each tagged with a sound chip circuit and plugged into the dirt below the tree, allowing the voice of the fragment to be heard as it is transported back to the interior space. As the tree and I arrived at the gallery all of the light and power switches and plugs responded by moving and talking to the leaves and branches. These fragments were grafted onto the walls using drywall gauze tape plugged into power and they created a chaotic and uncontrolled chorus of overlapping voices. I then plugged the tree into its battery charger and then she embedded herself into the wall and regenerated for 40 minutes. I repeated the entire process multiple times. Long Haul re-imagined a relationship to nature within the context of the built environment. The project examined an architecture that attempted to supply the needs of its inhabitants and drew comparisons to the natural world’s effort to survive within the city.

Technical Assistance: Robyn Moody and Chris Alcock