Winterblue + Essay

Winterblue is a study of color within a wintery, monochromatic landscape that investigates the significance of home and community in the post-pandemic era. For most, the pandemic profoundly impacted the notion of home and sense of community. Winterblue reflects on the pandemic’s impact while embracing technology and new avenues of creativity in the face of extraordinary global challenge.

The installation triggers our memory to the importance of home’s role during lockdown, and to the loss of community as a result of enforced isolation brought on by the pandemic. Three years later, what are the lingering impacts?

The installation includes artworks created pre- and post-pandemic.

12 Photographs:

Shot close to home on an empty, back road in early 2019 – today the area is packed with commuters and construction vehicles, preventing a safe shoot, and indicating the influx of people who have moved to our town.

As more people sought to leave urban life, our community – like may across the country – underwent a substantial increase in wealth, and people seeking a new way of life. Our local demographics and town character transformed so notably that marketing leaders initiated an ad campaign around a plea for kindness that remains in use today.

Captured using a medium format camera, the images are blurry and present a dreamy, hazy recollection of life before the pandemic.

Serving as metaphor, the premonition underscores the extent of our ignorance of the damage we are inflicting upon ourselves and the planet.

Contact Sheets I & II:

In January 2023, I rediscovered the essence of my community through an unforeseen event that showcased the best qualities of our town and reminded me why I moved here. The experience also deepened my appreciation for winter, the season for which I moved 30 years earlier. Its cold, darkness, and isolation inspired me to be out in it, observing atmospheric conditions as they actuate a camera’s field of vision and reception of color.

The images here are in focus and illuminate the sharpness and vividness of the present moment while affirming the clarity and wisdom gained from the pandemic.

The iPhone drew intensity of color from the monochrome and enabled the capture of this landscape in below zero temps, high winds, deep snow, and darkness.

144 10 square inch photo tiles compose Contact Sheet I while Contact Sheet II consists of 103. Apart from cropping, all photographs are unaltered.

The MOTE:

In the center of the installation is the MOTE, anacronym for MY OWN THERAPEUTIC ESCAPE and short for the “remote”. The MOTE is a multimedia and sound capsule concept designed for immersive digital media, light and remote gathering experiences.

The MOTE enables access with privacy allowing users to engage with art, music, light and each other in innovative ways, signaling LWS’s interest in combining art, technology, and collaboration to develop artistic therapeutic interventions.

Winterblue I:

Inside MOTE Winterblue I is playing, an AI-generated classical piano composition, 2.30 min in length. AI-generated music combines user input along with algorithms to analyze and replicate the patterns of existing compositions to generate unique compositions.

Listening to classical music stimulates the body’s release of endorphins and dopamine and improves memory, focus and attention while providing a welcome respite for overburdened eyes.