Air Quality (2012)

Posted on December 27, 2016October 23, 2023 by Luke Fischbeck

Air Quality examines transparency, filtering, and the double image—playfully returning to age-old questions: is it possible to think two thoughts at once? Is time symmetrical? Is fire alive?

The video is an array of interwoven images: transparent stripes spiral in California sun, a burning candle displaces time, a toxic red hand spins a circular stone, colored smoke explodes against a hot pink backdrop… Air Quality studies how filters both organize and scatter light, connecting this physical process to the clear / unclear transfer of information.

Single channel video, 2012
Duration: 14 minutes 16 seconds
Sound by Luke Fischbeck

Sarah Rara

Info | Work

Sarah Rara’s multi-disciplinary practice— including video, sound, performance, and writing— explores the position of witness within fragile systems. Their work in sound and moving image considers gender, queerness, technology, disability, and illness, in connection with environmental research. Regarding the environment as relational and invested with notions of identity, Sarah Rara’s work considers the socio-political and personal dimensions of sensing technologies. They are a primary organizer of the ongoing project lucky dragons. Their work, solo and in collaboration, has been presented at such institutions as the Whitney Museum of American Art (as part of the 2008 Whitney Biennial), the Hammer Museum, the Centre Georges Pompidou, Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, London’s Institute for Contemporary Art, PS1 in New York, REDCAT and Human Resources in Los Angeles, MOCA Los Angeles, the 54th Venice Biennale, Documenta 14 in Athens, and the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, among others. Rara is a 2018 recipient of the LACMA Art + Technology fellowship and current artist-in-residence at Bangkok 1899, Bangkok, Thailand. Rara is Assistant Professor of Moving Image at Williams College.

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