Geographic Soul Mate 1: an intimacy created by acknowledging distances. 2: a relationship with the other side of earth not as a polarity or opposite but as a fluid, shifting continuum that extends within and beyond the planet.
Origins of Antipode: Antipode first appeared in a translation of a Latin text as a word designating “men that have their feet against our feet”, that is, inhabitants of the opposite side of the globe. The word, which originated in Greek, combines anti-meaning “opposite” with the root pod – meaning “foot”. In this project I am using the word antipode as a formula for exploring points on earth separated by 180°.
The Other Side is Here, (in progress):
Soul Mate 180° as a 1:1 scale, sculptural rendering of a specific segment of ocean surface is located to displace its geographic antipode. As Land Art, it will incorporate and expand upon the cultural, political and ecological significance unique to each site. The next site will be sited at the Los Angeles County Museum.
Soul Mate 180° as a sonic work will manifest as a vinyl record. Sculpturally, the record is a flat earth. Side A and Side B will play sounds that correspond with specific geographic antipodes or opposite sides of the earth.
The technological challenge: Find a way of collecting data that will give specific detailed information about the mass, shape, texture, sound and color of a surface of a site as remote and inaccessible as the middle of the open ocean at a specific time. The antipode of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (34.0634047, -118.36083910000002) is the Indian Ocean, approx. 1500 km off Southern tip of Madagascar, (-34.0634047, 61.63916089999998). I am equally interested in what the technological blanks, (missing pixels, etc.) will tell us; how the awkward unknown creates its own shape, sounds and story.
Fabrication: The sculpture/ marker will be round in circumference sitting directly on the ground displacing the existing surface. The size is dependent on the needs of the site and the dimensions of the waves. The materials used will be chosen also depending on the context of the site.
Context:
The strength of Soul Mate 180° rests in the tension between what can be seen and what is imagined. Getting to the opposite side of the earth has a history of fantastical misadventures keynoted by the 1952 Bugs Bunny Yosemite Sam cartoon episode where Yosemite Sam exclaims “Great horney toads, I must’a dug clean through to Chiny”. Yosemite Sam’s misguided understanding of geography in an attempt to dig for gold reveals much about American culture at that time, China representing the farthest one could travel and the Chinese being the most “other”. Spatially, Soul Mate 180° is defined by its subjective verticality, and each site of the project is expressed by the horizontal lines, borders, and vistas, collapsing and expanding one’s sense of the earth. Geographic, cultural and political displacements and shifts are happening all the time, but one antipode displacing another is as radically re-orienting as finding a tattered scrap of Borges’ 1:1 map opposite to where it was drawn.
