Tears for Lost Frequencies is a performative installation that explores our complex relationship with plastic through the act of improvisation. Our intention is to highlight plastic as a matter that cannot be separated from the “natural”: a material everywhere and becoming our “nature” and our “uninvited” collaborator. In Tears for Lost Frequencies, microplastics found in tears become material witnesses to the experience of one’s hearing loss and a speculative space for plastic healing.
Location: Harvestworks Art and Technology Program Building 10a, Nolan Park, Governors Island
Open to the public from 11 am to 5 pm Fri Sat and Sun
Date: Opening August 30th, 2024 – Closing October 27, 2024. On Saturday August 31st will be a performance by Luc Vitkova at 2:45 pm.
Performance by Monica and Senem on September 14th, 2024
Tears for Lost Frequencies is a performative installation that explores our complex relationship with plastic. Our intention is to highlight plastic as a matter that cannot be separated from the “natural”: a material that once was invented, and is now a human artifact. Microplastics are everywhere and becoming our “nature”, our “uninvited” collaborator, and our material witnesses.
In this work, we look deeper into our bodily connection, to see if we carry microplastics in our most intimate moments of relating to the world. In Tears for Lost Frequencies, microplastics found in tears of grief become companions to the experience of one’s hearing loss and a speculative space for plastic healing and sensory expansion.
Recent studies on microplastics suggest that microplastics that are found on ocular surfaces/eyes might cause a reduction of tear production over time. In other words, we might produce fewer tears due to microplastics in our systems.
Microplastics have an affect on how we grieve. They are becoming the highlight of our news and our shared futures.
BIOGRAPHY
Monica Duncan and Senem Pirler have been collaborating since 2017, creating audiovisual performances that investigate everyday objects, concepts of agency and queer potentiality. Their collaborative work has been shown in numerous festivals and venues such as Revolutions Per Minute, Kuala Lumpur Experimental Film, Video & Music, Transient Visions, Light Matter, Athens International Film + Video, Re-connect Art Festival as part of the Prague Biennale, Intermediale Festival of Audiovisual Forms, Chicago Underground Film Festival, Festival ECRÃ, Fisura, International Festival of Experimental Film & Video and forthcoming CURRENTS New Media Festival. Duncan and Pirler performed their audiovisual performance, “Surface Connection” at the 61st Ann Arbor Film Festival’s Expanded Cinema program and exhibited their work in the LEAF2023 Sync Exhibition. They have been artists-in-residence at Signal Culture (Owego, NY), PACT Zollverein (Essen, Germany), Institute for Electronic Arts (Alfred, NY) and LMCC at Governors Island (NYC). They are recipients of the 2024 Harvestworks New Works Artist Residency.
Concept, Video, Sound, Performance: Monica Duncan and Senem Pirler
Speaker Design: Monica Duncan, Senem Pirler, and Paul Geluso
Immersive Mix Engineering: Paul Geluso and Senem Pirler
Speaker Fabrication: Vera Cut
Sampled Tears:
KS Brewer, Kristin Lucas and Anonymous participants
Made with support from Harvestworks, Signal Culture, NATURE Lab and LMCC at Governors Island.
About Elements! in Art and Tech. Programmed for the annual Harvestworks Art and Technology Program Building on Governors Island, the artworks in this group show are inspired by elements of light, water, earth, flower plasma and their influence on humans. Selected by the Harvestworks arts committee and the Executive Director Carol Parkinson, the works use creative technology such as audio/video spatialization, gesture, body tracking and vegetal power.
