Growing up in Texas, a state shaped by its oil-rich economy, I feel compelled to respond to the prioritization of economic interests over ecological well-being. My relationship with toxic landscapes is complex and personal. I spent my early years near a hazardous waste storage facility, often wondering about the long-term effects of exposure. Fond memories of playing with my siblings in neighborhoods surrounding active oil refineries are laced with the fascination I felt for these imposing industrial formations, oddly juxtaposed against a pastoral countryside.
Hazardous Phenotypes investigates toxicity within both psychological and ecological spaces through a multidisciplinary approach that includes sculpture, robotics, choreography, lighting, sound, and performance for video. This work redefines the term “soundscape,” traditionally used to describe a single-channel audio recording of an environment. Here, sound sculptures are strategically placed to move like notes across a visual score, creating an immersive 3D, live-action animatronic composition. Each vignette within Hazardous Phenotypes serves as an allegorical exploration of the pervasive effects of toxicity in our environments and our psyches. Within the toxic soundscapes, mechanical objects perform ritualistic interventions, warnings about what may come or what might already be upon us.
HP has been projected outdoors at the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center, streamed on social media during COVID, featured on a video wall in Las Vegas, and exhibited with synched robotic musical accompaniment at FIMP21, Sonoscopia, Porto, Portugal 2021. In 2023, it was featured in an online exhibition for Not Real Art.
This project was generously supported in part by the Cultural Arts Division of the City of Austin Economic Development Department, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Texas Commission on the Arts, the Mid America Arts Alliance, and New Music USA, made possible by annual program support and/or endowment gifts from the Helen F. Whitaker Fund and the Aaron Copland Fund for Music.
