Installation and Performance
Arizona State University Art Museum, 1998
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Special Thanks to: ASU Art Museum, The Institute for Studies in the Arts, Lisa Sette Gallery, The Sports Authority, Dr. Joe Abate, Ken Austin, Bill Brauckman, Sheilah Britton, Patricia Clark, Brian Cook, Aixe Djelal, Brett Dutton, Jeremy Dutton, Jobie Dutton, Taylor Harnisch, Heidi Hess, Steve Johnson, Heather Lineberry, David Lorig, Dan Overton, George Pawl, Matt Proctor, Virginia Sardi , Lisa Sette, Charles Spilman, Greg Strange, Dr. Peter Tibi, Dale Wiggins, Alfred Yazzie, Susanna Yazzie, Marilyn Zietlin.
Underwater, is an installation and performance that confronts the tenuous relationship between the internal rhythms and cycles of our body and the basic elements of air, water, and time as elements of both sustenance and peril. Within an installational setting of scorched and burned out trees, underwater video pulses through the inside of the logs, air bubbles rise to the surface of pools of water hidden inside the trees, and heartbeats are sensed, transmitted, and received. During the performance, Cooper is submerged underwater inside a burned tree breathing only through small air pockets which are refilled by air bubbles released with each heartbeat of his body.
Remote Heartbeats:
A series of wireless heart sensors and receivers transmit and receive signals from and to public participants. On one end is the individual who is transmitting their heartbeat via a wireless sensor and transmitter strapped to their body. On the other end are the individuals who listen, feel, and hear the heartbeats via small wooden burls embedded with circuits boards that receive the heartbeat signals and translate them into audible and physical sensations.
Heart Rhythms:
Embedded within a large burned out tree exists a video monitor playing back, via laserdisc, a montage of underwater video. The video content, consisting of underwater video ranging from the cold rivers of Colorado to the warm shores of Florida, plays in a kind of pulsing fashion according to the heart rhythms being transmitted. Adjacent to the video is a small pool of water within a limb of the tree. Pockets of air bubbles rise to the surface, much in the same way as the video plays back in a kind of pulsing fashion.
The Performance:
The performance involves submerging my body underwater, inside an even larger burned out tree, with my body sustained only by a small air pocket inside the log. The air pocket, which is continually refilled by air bubbles, released with each heartbeat of my body, remains to be the only immediate source of sustenance for myself while I am submerged underwater for an indefinite amount of time.
