Constructed as a four-part epic, Negative Space is a series of multi-channel video installations, collages, and a culminating book. Through a process of conjuring and deconstructing science fiction tropes, the work interrogates our anthropocentric inclinations, proposing that by changing perception—how we define, know, and organize the world—lies the potential to actively alter our world building hubris. Each video is a non-linear and poetic work structured around a physical system: VOID, BODY, LAND, and WATER, that raises questions about the relationship between land use, environmental fragility, historical narratives, and the systemic production of marginalized experiences.
Negative Space is a series of four sculptural installations where elements from the videos double as seating and viewers are situated inside spatialized audio-visual experiences. The Negative Space tetralogy is structured around permutable hierarchies wherein the performers act as concepts or metaphors and the environment or scenography is the protagonist.
As a formal term in art, “negative space” denotes the matter between and around the subject(s). The subject is the known or nameable element within a compositional framework and the focus of the viewers attention, while negative space is a compositional gap or absence utilized to accentuate the primacy of the subject. What is compelling about negative space is that it is undefinable open set of possibilities—a vital and shifting form of being.
All works in the Negative Space cycle feature soundtracks by artist Geo Wyeth.
NEGATIVE SPACE (a work in four parts)
No. 0: VOID
A Smeary Spot, 2015
No. 00: THE BODY
Living Room, 2017
No. 000: LAND
Leave No Trace, 2019
Also see Leave No Trace, an experimental sound project recorded on vinyl completed in 2016
No. 0000: WATER
What is Perverse is Liquid, 2023