During my artist residency at Stanford University, a conversation about health implications due to pollution caught my attention. Some of the most severely polluted sites, co-called Superfund sites, are located in Santa Clara County, widely known as Silicon Valley. TCE was stored underground, and containers started leaking, polluting the ground water for decades to come. I visited the locations: light industrial buildings, campuses of tech companies, parking lots, sports grounds. The only visible sign of ongoing monitoring of the levels of TCE were these lids on the street. Watch this space – my next project will explore the notion of responsibility & contamination.
Public Lecture at Stanford University
As part of my Roberta Denning Visiting Artist residency I was invited to give a public lecture at Oshman Hall – due to COVID-19 only for Stanford folks. Stanford Daily, the student-run newspaper at Stanford University, summed up my artistic practice in this article >
New installation format for Third Quarterly Report
Together with the curators of Solid Roof, Severe Weather, currently showing at WUK, Vienna, we developed an angular presentation format for the double screen media installation. Previously, the piece was shown as two opposite projections – both projections display a synchronised recording of the 3QR procedures, but the attentive observer will notice inexplicable room aberrations – the conferencing room behaves like soft architecture. The new presentation format is enhancing this moment of doubt and irritation in the visitor’s perception by bringing the screens closer together.
The exhibition will remain open until end of November – check the venue’s website for opening times.
Installation view. Third Quarterly Report by Manu Luksch, WUK 2021