Untitled
(Earth Orchid)
Site
performance kiln/furnace, 32
ft. long, steel, refractory cement, propane, ceramic fiber
blanket, concrete
foundation, University of Hartford, Hartford, CT, 1988
Left: pre-firing,
back view
Center: fire state.
Right: post-firing,
cooled, altered state, ceramic fiber blanket removed.
The
first of three performance/site works in the series: 51
Million BTU's. The three works of this series investigate
the relationship of the kiln, it's burning of fossil fuels
and the fuels ancient
botanical origin and geologic transformation. The
firing was done as a one evening performance event where
the fuel (natural gas in this case) was ignited within the “earth
orchid” form, momentarily re-united with the bio-morphology
and meta-photosynthetic condition of the kiln at high temperature,
reminiscent of it's origin and transformation in past geologic
time. A studio-based study for this concept, Coral
Orchid,
1983, preceeded Untitled (Earth Orchid). |
The
other projects
in 51 Million BTU's are Oculus:
Dead Sea/Oil Field, 1989 and Humboldt
Ship, 1989. A
video installation/project, 51
Million BTU’s/Metabolism Study/C3H8,
e-, NaCl, examines and tranforms the energy expenditure
of the three projects. The
51 Million BTU series were progenator's of subsequent projects:
Metabolism and Mortality/O2,
1992, Rotting Flame,
1994, and Pitzer Project:
A Prototype System for the Production and Distribution of
Ancient Sunlight, 1996 |
Furnace
Projects, Constance
Lewallan
Kiln
Projects: Material and Process Experiments in/of the Landscape, John
Roloff
|
