EXTRACTION
EXTRACTION: Art on the Edge of the Abyss. A global coalition of artists are bringing awareness of the climate tipping point.
About The Extraction Initiative:
Conceived by Peter Koch and Edwin C. Dobb (1950 - 2019), and developed by Samuel Pelts, Extraction: Art on the Edge of the Abyss is a cross border, multi venue coalition which asks artists working in all media to respond to the climate tipping point. The project aims to "create a ruckus" around the precarious situation that our economic appetite for extracting natural resources to fuel our ever expansive modern life-style has dangerously pushed us to. This is not a sustainable path, and thought scientists have presented ample data and warnings, it is time for artists to create a visceral reaction to incite change. The CODEX Foundation in Berkeley, is linking the participants in a catalog and website. It is an organic evolving movement and can be followed here: www.extractionart.org
I was included in The Sebastopol Center for the Arts Extraction Show curated by Robin Dintiman, Catherine Devriese and Holly Downing which was on view October 23 - November 28, 2021
Time...The Destroyer of Worlds
Perhaps it started with the human-centric Economic treatises of the Labor Theory of Value proposed by Adam Smith and Karl Marx. It is the work added to a natural resource that gives value to a commodity, not the natural resource independently. "The real price of everything, what every thing actually costs (....), is the toil and trouble of acquiring it" (Smith, Wealth of Nations, Book I Chapter V, p. 1)
Does this imply that natural resources are free for the taking? For the extracting? Gifts from God so that we might become masters of our destiny?
But actions create myriad and unforeseen reactions.
Nothing is actually free.
Not the precious resources.
Not the energy captured and redistributed.
An extreme example of extracting from the Earth to create potential uncontrollable disaster is the development of atomic weapons. With this invention, humans have the capability of extracting and refining chemical elements, Plutonium and Uranium, and using them to create tools designed to kill entire populations of humans and other species. This dangerous technology was developed with the altruistic aim of avoiding another holocaust. However, as with any invention, there are never any guarantees about who will be able to ultimately access the technology, or how it will be used.
We live now, and have lived since the late 1940's with the undercurrent of fear that we could be either vaporized or severely maimed by an atomic war. Current polarization in our society is worrisome. It seems increasingly that the actualization of the desire of one group seeking to harm or even eliminate another group having a different belief structure might not be so far off. Through diplomacy, leaders of countries who have a nuclear arsenal are scrambling to limit which countries can develop one. The effectiveness of this is nebulous.
In 2018, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, a primary think tank for the development of nuclear weapons in the United States, released previously classified footage of some of their weapons tests conducted between 1945 and 1962. Digitization of this footage was made as an effort to further study the explosions and to preserve the decaying film stock. The films are hypnotizing. The power and beauty suspends the reality of what is happening on the screen.
Time...The Destroyer of Worlds, my proposal for the Extraction Initiative presented at the at Sebastopol Center for the Arts, uses stills from these videos as a model for 12 paintings. Documenting "events" via series' is a strong theme in my work. Examining single images in sequence dilates time. It illustrates how change happens moment by moment. In the case of the detonation of these weapons, seeing the explosions slowly prolongs both the senses of wonder and impending doom, and hopefully, provides a moment of reflection regarding human actions and choices.
When Robert Oppenheimer, a lead developer of the atomic bomb at Los Alamos National Laboratory during World War II, witnessed the first atomic explosion he quoted the Bhagavad Gita, a seminal Hindu text. " I am become death, the destroyer of worlds". Interpretation of this text cites that it is time that counts and controls the lifespan of all beings. The examination of time is important to this project.
This series also addresses address beauty and horror co-existing and arising. The incredible science used to develop these weapons versus the capability it gives humans to eliminate our selves; the surreal beauty of the images and the disturbing destruction that they represent. Another section of the Bhagavad Gita that Oppenheimer quoted, “If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst into the sky that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One” synthesizes this idea. It is a beauty so intense that it is too destructive to look at.
The specific film that I intend to use for this project is called " Operation Hardtrack-1-Juniper 53070". It documents a bomb drop from a tower on an island named Enewetok in the Northern Marshall Islands. It clearly shows the vapor created by the intense heat of the blast and the subsequent cooling of this to reveal the explosion. In this case, the explosion destroyed a coral reef and burned coral was sucked into the fireball of the explosion, visible in the mushroom cloud. Because the detonation was in the water, the radiation is impossible to contain and remove. The section of the Pacific Ocean where these nuclear tests were conducted is still closed off.
This drives at the heart of the question of consequence. We bring things into the world with one intention, yet we cannot control the subsequent effects.
We extract resources to support a modern, now global lifestyle that is out of balance with the natural cycles of the Earth. In the case of nuclear armament, this extractive process will likely bring about our demise as a species. At this time, when it seems that humanity is increasingly cavalier about respect of the gift of life, it is important to remember that we have choice. The power that we have developed and grabbed can either exalt or destroy.