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Around Osprey is a two-screen projection based on our artist residency with the Conservation Foundation of the Gulf Coast in Osprey, FL, 2018. We created the two video programs: Element A and Element B.For this virtual exhibition, the two video programs have the same duration of 29 min 38 sec, simulating the interactive element of the original design. The suggested viewing setup is: two laptops placed side-by-side; Element A on the left, Element B on the right. The two programs should be started simultaneously.Element A is a series of 12 poetic videos and relates to explorations. The moving pictures and sound treatments for these were gathered from our notes, poetry and stories, research outings, and meetings with local residents. The overall flow of the work relates to encounters with the natural world, environmental concerns over development and human encroachment into natural settings, and what derives from those human interventions.Element B - Our explorations of coastal areas were overshadowed by the omnipresence and effects of the Red Tide, aka K. brevis. As it altered the environment, it also shaped our perceptions. As the cell count of these organisms grew, fish and other oxygen-starved sea animals washed up on beaches. We humans also choked for air. To bring forward observations about the far-reaching effects of the Red Tide, we created Element B (no sound), a real-time reading of a data sets for K. brevis weekly cell counts. (For this virtual exhibition the real-time has been replaced with a video capture.) Element B can be seen as a disrupted state of the environment. The data was entered by day and location on 16 South Florida beaches over a twelve-month timespan. When the counts are low, there is little-to-no change in the moving pictures. When the counts are higher, the images take on corresponding degrees of red tint and temporal shifts that show up as blurriness. The cell count data and location are not directly related to the images they are placed upon, instead, the flow of effects on images relates to how nature works, in cycles, always little by little, and sometimes, surprisingly fast, with overwhelming effects. The text information, on the bottom left of Element B is as follows: K. brevis cell count | Date | Location.To aid the visualization of the K. brevis data, we are including the information below:Possible effect of K. brevisNot present - Levels of 1 cell or less: No effects anticipatedVery Low - Levels > 1 – 10 cells/ml: Possible respiratory irritation; shellfish harvesting closuresLow - Levels > 10 – 100 cells/ml: Respiratory irritation; shellfish harvesting closures; possible fish killsMedium - Levels > 100 - 1,000 cells/ml: Respiratory irritation; shellfish harvesting closures; possible fish kills; detection of chlorophyll by satellites at upper range of cell abundanceHigh - Levels > 1,000 cells/ml: As above plus water discoloration

(Source: Exhibition website)

The Book of Hours is a calendar of poetry films. There is a poetry film for now and for different times of day, for every month of the year.

The Book of Hours is a contemporary re-imagining of a Medieval book of hours. These were collections of exquisitely hand-illustrated religious readings and accompanying images. They were created in a handy size so they could be carried by the owner and read on a daily basis. They can also be seen as interactive texts as these books were not intended to be read chronologically. This Book of Hours is secular but the general mood is contemplative and reflective.

All the films have been made in collaboration between Lucy English, a UK based spoken word poet, and an international community of film makers. 

In collaboration, two become one, but the process isn’t always easy—it requires constant negotiation. Who speaks and who is silenced?In “June 17th” two figures attempt to tell one story, in the process raising questions about how we narrate and construct our lives, who we are, and what we know. Based on Borsuk and Andy Fitch’s As We Know (Subito, 2014), an erased and redacted diary that presents the most unmediated-seeming idiom—the diurnal, journalistic record—as itself the consequence of methodical and whimsical extraction, this project foregrounds the tensions of authorship that arise within the text.

This video project explores Norwegian folk histories that return as fragments in light of ongoing volcanic eruptions. The project was recorded in Bergen following the disruptions caused by the activities of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland. A folk history of disaster is set against slowly revolving images set in a contemporary landscape. This is the first of a series of works recorded in Norway that juxtapose folk histories and contemporary events to explore narrative and associative characteristics of cultural anxieties and collective memory. The project was researched and filmed by Roderick Coover in 2010 thanks to a distinguished-scholar-in-residence award from the University of Bergen.

Intermission is a performative redadaction of the poetics of cinema. The performance and media platform utilizes René Clair’s short film Entr’acte (1924, a collaboration with Picabia and Erik Satie) as a starting point, reimagining cinema as if the Dadaist vision for the medium had become the prevalent form.