Pacific Cadence

print and custom electronics
12' x 60'
2018 (in process)

This 60' long undulating landscape began with 2485 photos of the Pacific Ocean. A permanent installation in Stanford’s new Bass Biology Building, the composited image teeters between ocean and desert, spilling from outside into the interior, across glass and solid walls and movable glass doors.

The glass wall of the outer conference room fogs and clears in sync with the tides at Hopkins Marine Station, Stanford's marine biology research station in Monterey Bay, ninety miles from campus.

The composited photos are color reversed, so that blues become yellows and greens become reds, and the ocean’s white foam becomes a deep black. The 50 megapixel images accentuate the ceaseless fluid dynamics of the ocean, and the warm tones and inky surface, reminiscent of ink wash paintings, enable us to see the ocean with fresh eyes. The strange confluence of water and dry land evoke both the timelessness and the vulnerability of our oceans.