Immolated Ocean

2022. Single channel video, color, sound. Loop.

In the summer of 2021 a leaking gas pipe in the Gulf of Mexico caught fire. Shocking and apocalyptic images of the ocean literally in flames were seared into my mind. The scene itself is unbelievably surreal. What is my relationship to this event? I consume oil based products and use its energy to move through space; slowly my skin starts to shimmer with a familiar iridescence as my complicity takes shape. The state of oil production versus the environment is a crushing depression, an insurgent act of despair, a self-immolation. Flames engulf my digital avatar, which appears at monumental scale in this simulated self portrait. Their face disappears behind dark smoke plumes and flames. Installed as a looping 4k video on a large 70 inch television.