Lindsey French

In the static, the steam, the smoke, I weave together imagery, audio and text related to bull kelp of California, wildfire atmospheres, memory loss, and airborne atmospheric communication from plants through volatile organic compounds. Bull kelp, common on the west coast, contain a small bulb of carbon monoxide to keep them afloat; too much carbon monoxide in the air can cause memory loss. I use this as a starting point to consider the cultural amnesia required to continue to the harmful practices of settler colonialism. The piece grows from previous works related to airborne communication, the materiality of communication, a focus on the receiver, and the shared communicative and political airspace of plants and humans. This includes Signal to Nose, a double broadcast in Pittsburgh, PA of two kinds of warning signals: a scent broadcast of green leaf volatiles, and an evolving radio playlist broadcasting of the voices of youth climate activists. See more at: https://lindseyfrench.com/doc/signaltonose.html

the static, the steam, the smoke from Lindsey French on Vimeo.