Collusion

Video Installation 2002
excerpt from 20min. looping video installation
Sound design by George Cicci
In Collusion, large amounts of smoke are drawn from the sky followed by a pause and small release before another inhalation begins. The sounds of machinery quickly take on a natural cadence that compels the viewer to breath with the factory. Just when all the smoke seems to have been withdrawn, more materializes from the blue sky in a never-ending deluge.
Collusion was filmed in Buffalo New York from the top of the City Hall in 2003. The remains of a once bustling american shipping and manufacturing hub radiate outward from the abandoned port nearby. It was easy to locate survivors as they continued to vent into the sky.
Collusion consists of a full wall projection of industrial expulsions that have been time-manipulated so that the vents seem to be sucking in the smoke in rhythmic breaths. As an enveloping installation, a connection is quickly made between the breathing of the viewer and the piece. It speaks not only of hope and hopelessness but control and our own complicity in what is happening to the world around us. Every smokestack evokes disdain from the spectator, but we must understand that that smoke is the result of producing the things we use every day, from our clothes to our food.

[@2aesthetic4me]

Interesting take on humanizing industrial machinery. Leaves a lot of interpretation. Like it

[@evolcdc]

Thank you! In the installation setting, most people found themselves breathing with the video without realizing it. I wanted to connect their bodies to being responsible for the functions of the machinery.