Shotgun ReviewEvolutions Spectrum/Hyperbolic Brain CoralBy Shotgun ReviewsMarch 24, 2013A monochromatic video begins with protozoic shapes slowly floating upward from the bottom of the screen. The scene shifts to the soft, undulating umbrella of a jellyfish. Its body contracts and expands with graceful motions, providing a hypnotic experience for the viewer. For fourteen minutes, blurred images of marine organisms softly drift in and out of focus. An orchestra of watery, unfamiliar reverberations accompanies the film and echoes throughout the room. Complementing the video images and the sounds, a sculpted brain coral floats in a tank of water. A light placed within the organic mass illuminates the tank. With these elements, Zoe Farmer’s multimedia installation, Evolutions Spectrum/Hyperbolic Brain Coral (2013), curated by Pierre-François Galpin, constructs a surreal underwater world that mesmerizes viewers.
The images are assembled from videos taken during the artist’s diving excursions, footage from various aquariums, and fabrications that look like living organisms. Both in video and objects, the distinction between the organic life forms and Farmer’s mimetic sculptures is indistinguishable.
The species in Farmer’s video are unique in that they do not conform to specified gender labels. A reef fish slowly swims into the frame, changing its sex before viewers’ eyes. Two hermaphroditic winged sea slugs interact in a peculiar mating ritual.
Zoe Farmer. Evolutions Spectrum/Hyperbolic Brain Coral, 2013; film still; Courtesy of the Artist.
Farmer’s technique of elongating the organisms’ actions, coupled with the use of a negative effect, further blurs the organisms’ sexual characteristics as well as their species identification.
Farmer’s installation undermines notions of scientific and cultural classification. The blurred imagery creates a subtle dissonance that allows viewers to see the essence of the organism rather than appointed or externalized identities. Farmer’s installation proposes that, by eliding recognizable forms and categorizations (such as jellyfish, seahorse, male, or female), creatures are able to attain even greater freedoms of movement and mobility.
Evolutions Spectrum/Hyperbolic Brain Coral was a one-day solo show at the California College of the Arts, in San Francisco, on March 1, 2013.
Raquel P. Nakoneczny is a writer living in San Francisco. She is currently pursuing her MA in visual and critical studies at the California College of the Arts.
The images are assembled from videos taken during the artist’s diving excursions, footage from various aquariums, and fabrications that look like living organisms. Both in video and objects, the distinction between the organic life forms and Farmer’s mimetic sculptures is indistinguishable.
The species in Farmer’s video are unique in that they do not conform to specified gender labels. A reef fish slowly swims into the frame, changing its sex before viewers’ eyes. Two hermaphroditic winged sea slugs interact in a peculiar mating ritual.
Zoe Farmer. Evolutions Spectrum/Hyperbolic Brain Coral, 2013; film still; Courtesy of the Artist.
Farmer’s technique of elongating the organisms’ actions, coupled with the use of a negative effect, further blurs the organisms’ sexual characteristics as well as their species identification.
Farmer’s installation undermines notions of scientific and cultural classification. The blurred imagery creates a subtle dissonance that allows viewers to see the essence of the organism rather than appointed or externalized identities. Farmer’s installation proposes that, by eliding recognizable forms and categorizations (such as jellyfish, seahorse, male, or female), creatures are able to attain even greater freedoms of movement and mobility.
Evolutions Spectrum/Hyperbolic Brain Coral was a one-day solo show at the California College of the Arts, in San Francisco, on March 1, 2013.
Raquel P. Nakoneczny is a writer living in San Francisco. She is currently pursuing her MA in visual and critical studies at the California College of the Arts.
