Penetrating the Earth's Crust: Comparing Marina Zurkow and Walter de Maria
The human act of penetrating far beyond the earth’s crust is the common theme between Marina Zurkow’s powerful new video entitled "NeoGeo I-IV", 2012 (in collaboration with Daniel Shiffman) and Walter de Maria’s “Vertical Earth Kilometer”, 1977. Both feature technological feats of drilling. Based on other works of art by these artists, it is safe to say that the attitudes conveyed by theses works are antithetical to each other. Although they are separated by decades, both attitudes still prevail throughout our culture.
“NeGeo I-IVE” is a set of four twelve-minute single-channel animation. It will be featured in the upcoming exhibition at Bitforms Gallery in Manhattan. De Maria’s work is permanently installed in the Friedrichsplatz Park in Kassel, Germany.
Hers contributes to the mounting protest against hydrofracking, a process that uses pressurized fluids to fracture rock in order to release petroleum, natural gas, or other such substances to feed humanity’s voracious appetite for fossil fuels. The center of the screen is occupied by an oil drill as it makes its way, relentless, through manifold geological layers. These layers are represented by tiny bits of hand-drawn rock of differing densities and particle size.
Significantly, this work is not an artist’s imaginative speculation. It is created in code and activated by rules of physics and geological formations of strata. Rules affect the density and behaviors of the strata, as well as the possible location of hydrocarbon particles, all of which come into contact with a drill bit. An oil “gush” occurs only if conditions are right. Thus, the videos expose a deep-earth view of a practice that is being heatedly contested by environmental advocates. Zurkow is contributing powerful evidence to support the opposition.
“Vertical Earth Kilometer” is a brass rod two inches in diameter and .6 miles in length! However, this monument does not rise from a base. In order to activate the viewer’s consciousness of industrial might and prowess, the full length of the rod is inserted into the ground with only the top, lying flush to the surface of the earth. The work can only be experienced imaginatively, not visibly.
The continuous metal rod is made up of lengths that are screwed tightly together. The boring of the shaft, which goes through six geological layers, took seventy-nine days.
Both works address the technology of intrusion and penetration, but Zurkow critiques the system, indicating that such technological exploits are exploitative. De Maria confirms them by adopting industrial power as his sculptural tool.