Rock Canyon Bacteria Cultures

One way I decided to capture the true élan of the soul of a location (in this case, Rock Canyon) is by taking bacteria samples and growing cultures from them. I attempted to make the unseen seen, and tried to show even the most minute aspects of this place. If everything in existence--at least everything physical, real and concrete--is made out of atoms, then really all that existence and reality is, and all that places (both inner and outer landscapes) really are is a combination of all of these different atom combining together to create something. This is a part of this idea, I attempted to take the minuscule, unseen aspects of a place (microscopic bacteria) and make it able to be seen by our eyes. It's impossible to actually show atoms, because they are too small and I do not have the access to a scanning tunneling microscope, or any other piece of sophisticated machinery required to properly see the building blocks of all reality.

Unfortunately, this is my first time making bacteria cultures. As a result, I wasn't able to have this project fully communicate my idea. Originally, I was to take samples from the four Classical Elements: Earth, Air, Fire, Water. I took an air sample by opening the petri dish and waving it around for a bit. I took a sample from a fire pit, and from the dirt and from a small pool of water. Unfortunately, I was unable to capture the fire pit sample (although, it looked a lot like the dirt sample). I also did not take in to account exactly how disgusting bacteria cultures are, and that they would make my apartment smell really bad and that I would end up having to quickly snap photos before throwing them away [I ran into a similar problem with my Spiral Jetty cultures, which became so rank and rancid that I was forced to throw them away before I could take a picture].

So, my final images are lacking and somewhat uninteresting, but are a very nice first attempt. Although I haven't yet taken Polaroids of Rock Canyon, I do appreciate the similarities in the process of "developing" a polaroid of a place and "developing" a bacteria culture of a place.

Earth [Rock Canyon, Utah]

Air [Rock Canyon, Utah]

Water [Rock Canyon, Utah]

Spiral Jetty and Rock Canyon

Spiral Jetty Observations

Rock Canyon General Information ~~ Jesse L Baird

Rock Canyon Sky Collage ~~ Jesse L Baird

This image is a 4:3 collage of 12 4:3 images of the sky taken at Rock Canyon, over several days, from several angles and locations. Together they give an idea of how dizzying it can be trying to fully capture all the nuances and changing aspects of a place. Although locations are concrete, physical, and (more or less) unchanging, they have a more ethereal nature that can never be fully captured or replicated. The mix of light and shadow, the light playing in the branches and cracks or the canyons, the wind blowing just-so to create a temperature combination unique to that geographical area--all these tiny, ephemeral elements combine together to create that space, at that time, in relation to the person experiencing it.

Each visit to a location is unique, although the physical place remains as a constant, different tiny elements constantly work together to create each moment in a place. And each moment is, like a snowflake, different than every other.

And so, this collage aims to capture 12 different "moments" of the sky within Rock Canyon.

Spiral Jetty ~~ Jesse L Baird

General Information

Spiral Jetty is an earthwork sculpture constructed in April 1970 that is considered to be the central work of American sculptor Robert Smithson. Built on the northeastern shore of the Great Salt Lake near Rozel Point in Utah entirely of mud, salt crystals, basalt rocks and water, Spiral Jetty forms a 1,500-foot-long (460 m), 15-foot-wide (4.6 m) counterclockwise coil jutting from the shore of the lake. The water level of the lake varies with precipitation in the mountains surrounding the area, revealing the jetty in times of drought and submerging it during times of normal precipitation.

Construction

Smithson reportedly chose the Rozel Point site based on the blood-red color of the water and its connection with the primordial sea. The red hue of the water is due to the presence of salt-tolerant bacteria and algae that thrive in the extreme 27 percent salinity of the lake's north arm, which was isolated from fresh water sources by the building of a causeway by the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1959.

To move the rock into the lake, Smithson hired Bob Phillips of Parson's Construction of nearby Ogden, Utah, who used two dump trucks, a large tractor, and a front end loader to haul the 6,650 tons of rock and earth into the lake. It is reported that Smithson had a difficult time convincing a contractor to accept the unusual proposal. Spiral Jetty was the first of his pieces to require the acquisition of land rights and earthmoving equipment.

He began work on the jetty in April 1970. Construction took six days.

Visibility

At the time of Spiral Jetty's construction, the water level of the lake was unusually low due to drought. The sculpture becomes submerged whenever the level of the Great Salt Lake rises above an elevation of 4,195 feet (1,279 m).

Financing and Ownership

The sculpture was financed in part by a $9,000 USD grant from the Virginia Dwan Gallery of New York.

The sculpture has been owned by the state of Utah since June 2011. Previously, the area was leased by the Dia Art Foundation of New York, who acquired the piece by a donation from Smithson's estate in 1999. The Dia Art Foundation is currently seeking a new lease from the state.

Preservation

The current exposure of the jetty to the elements and to the ravages of its growing number of visitors has led to a controversy over the preservation of the sculpture. The discoloration of the rocks and the exposure of the lake bed having altered the colors of the original, a proposal has emerged to buttress the sculpture and restore the original colors by the addition of new basalt rocks in the spirit of the original. It is expected that without such additions, the sculpture will be submerged again once the drought is over.

The issue has been complicated by ambiguous statements by Smithson, who expressed an admiration for entropy in that he intended his works to mimic earthly attributes in that they remain in a state of arrested disruption and not be kept from destruction.

Sky Collage

Taking multiple pictures of the sky, from different places within the Spiral Jetty location, pointed at multiple parts of the sky, I was able to create a collage of all of the sky images I captured. This quilt gives us an idea of what the awe-inspiring and expansive "Sky" is like at Spiral Jetty--more effectively than you can with just one image.

Sky Collage -- Spiral Jetty

Bacteria Cultures

Unfortunately, I was unable to capture on film the bacteria cultures that I captured at Spiral Jetty. I collected from the sand around the Jetty, as well as the dirt on the bank, the fire pit, the water at the center of the Jetty, and the air at the place. The cultures ended up looking pretty neat, the air one had many different spots of bacteria, some pink and blue. The other cultures were interesting looking as well.

Unfortunately, they were so bad smelling that I was unable to take their pictures and had to simply throw them out.

Film Texture

I focused on the close-up textures of Spiral Jetty, drawing from Stan Brakhage's Mothlight and Stellar to create something that, I think, really captures the space well. Different textures bombard the viewer, and we are able to see the building blocks that make up the Spiral Jetty.

[The first time I uploaded the video, something went wrong. I need to re-upload the video soon, then I will post it.]

Polaroids

[Will Upload the Polaroids and Write and Artist Statement]

Personal Project Ideas (Powerpoint Slides) ~~ Jesse L Baird

In my personal project, I am focusing on the idea that we as humans have an inmate urge to possess the things that matter to us, but we are incapable of doing this with locations because they are too big to be possessed. So, we try to capture the essence of what a place means to us in a variety of way. In my personal project, I will try to capture Rock Canyon in as many ways as I can. Following are some examples of the types of approaches I will take.

The four pictures to the left are four Polaroids that I took while traveling from Idaho back to Utah last summer. They are the four pictures I had to capture the entire experience of driving. I coupled two images of the road together, as well as two images of fake animals I encountered on my way back. The other pictures are further examples of Polaroids of places that I found online (Although, I do have an extensive collection of Polaroids that I have taken myself).

I really like Polaroids because I like being constrained to a certain (limited) number of exposures that I can take. I have few memories from my childhood, and as a result the memories that I do have are incredibly precious to me. That is the idea I am focusing on with these Polaroids. I will limit myself to a number (says three, or five--with Monument Valley requiring more) and I will have to capture the space as best I can with those exposures. 

These are images that were developed from film that had been left out and exposed to the elements (Specifically water damage). I will attempt to do a similar thing in Rock Canyon. Using a disposable camera I will take pictures of rock canyon, and then I will leave the roll of film out and exposed to the elements of Rock Canyon. That way, when I develop them we will be able to see both the literal place (in the images) and the more unseen elements of the places, manifested on film.

This images shows birds on a wire, that someone then transformed into a musical staff. Transforming the landscape into another medium, like this, could be an interesting way to capture a space such as Rock Canyon.

Inspired by Stan Brakhage's Stellar and Mothlight, I will take close-up, burst photos of the textures of a places, and then show them sequentially in a video (with each image lasting about four frames). I might couple this image with a soundscape, or leave them silent. I'll attempt to echo Brakhage's works and create a piece (or pieces) that will be able to really capture the feeling (literally, the way a place physically feels) of a place, as well as attempting to capture the essence of what the place means to me. Posted elsewhere on the blog is an example of this project in action, with Rock Canyon.

Combining different views of the same place, I am going to construct a mosaic for each place we go. A sort of quilt, made from different shots of the sky taken at different places within a certain location, as well as different angles and at different times.

Another idea I had was to take bacteria samples from different sources within a location (Specifically focusing on the four elements: Earth, Air, Fire and Water) and seeing what they're cultures would look like. I'm making the unseen seen, and showing (hopefully) just how different these places that are near each other really are (both from location to location, and from bacterial sources within a single location. Hopefully the cultures turn out interesting, and that I am able to adequately create what I hope to.