Threshing Floor: rites of spring
This piece explores the theme of revolutionary beginnings inspired by the 100th anniversary of Igor Stravinsky’s epoch forming symphony, the Rites of Spring. Created in dialogue with 2112, an international design alliance dedicated to inquiry into the intersection of Art and Science, Rites of Spring/Threshing Floor builds upon Mobile Studio principles of co-creative cognition and object making based upon experience of place. Threshing Floor creates new architectural form from this cross boundary experiment. Film and digital fabrication are the methods the studio uses to dissolve the false dichotomies between nature and culture, intuitive and rational
Using video documentation of field day experiments and environs and self-composed music to create a sub-conscious field of design, the studio composed scenes that reflected the moods and textures of spring in Alabama. The relationship between human intention and the power of nature, between Winter and Spring, between chaos and order all find voice in the dream narrative of the film. From these investigations arose a form, generated digitally from source images and impressions of the forces generating life from soil and water. This form was explored within the context of the visual world that created it and found utility as the celebratory “Threshing Floor”; the place of the chorus to dance/chant in honor of the coming spring and the harvest that must necessarily follow.
The Remediation of Curses
Wind Wind Wind Ahh, Wind Wind Wind ahh
the eyes go dim under the lids as the weight of him crushes into the ribs
the place where the blood runs out stinks for a year and the wild dogs roll in it to delight their bitches
the grass always grows with a certain yellow glow for a few years after the battle
deep in the inner folds of the women’s hearts the curse uncoils with each lost man and child
sounds of youth eager to ascend to the kingfisher hieghts of the river roll away and bcome the smooth red pebbles on the point bar
wind wind wind ahhh wind wind wind ahhhhh wi n d
the great disks of power are buried in their stone boxes far from Tukabatchee and great oaks have been planted over them for tha past 200 years
each clan knows the location of only one and they can never be rejoined until Oceola’s head is returned from the white man’s hospital collection.
The white man knows his curse and holds the holy head of Geronimo hostage in a hall of Demons
Sweet Mary alone on the Federal Road watches the warriors and the slavers with the passion of weeping angels…by her cabin door daily marching towards their own destructive ends
In the mounds of the Gulf the great fathers sleep in their dreams, mate with the Spirits of the Earth that slowly erode the the humanity of the Nation that killed their women and their children.
w i n d w i n d w i n d a h h h w i n d w i n d a h h h
Urban Quilt
mobile studio 