slag study (for this third century)
2024, 00:05:10, b&w, sound, 1920 x 7680 for 4 LCD monitors
stop-motion animation, still photographs, + ai generated video
slag study is part of an ongoing body of work titled this third century. The research-based project centers on Brown’s Dump, one of America’s first industrial reuse sites, located in Pittsburgh’s West Mifflin borough. Now home to several shopping centers and the carcass of what was once the third-largest mall in the world, the landscape has been drastically reshaped over 150 years of mining, industrial dumping, excavation, and construction.
While the broader project delves into themes of empire, extraction, and human progress, slag study examines how human interventions, specifically the accumulation of industrial waste, dynamically reshape contemporary landscapes. Unfolding as a cartographic exploration of slag — the molten, steel byproduct whose cooled, volcanic-rock-like form composes the mountainous hills of Brown’s Dump — the work weaves photographs from historic aerial land surveys, railroad maps, and newspaper images, with microscopic imagery of slag, and documentation of the site today. The topographic study features text sourced from the artist’s research that evokes the historical context and poetic consequences of material movements. Composed primarily of stop-motion animation, the work’s mode of making underscores the notion of re-enlivenment while proposing alternative methods of mapping multifaceted landscapes.