FLUIDS DYNAMIC is an installation video developed in conjunction with the experimental docu-mentary “California Growth Machine” in 2016. The material was filmed in collaboration with Emmy-winning cinematographer Michael Kelem (BBC Planet Earth).
This video presents a visual meditation over a shape-shifting body of water, a reservoir in Southern California, representing all fresh water as a finite resource. Over the last century, water use has grown at more than twice the rate of population increase. The result of myriad environmental, political, economic, and social forces, water scarcity is an abstract concept to many — but a stark reality for others.
In the video, a sense of impermanence and perpetual motion is visually communicated through a series of sweeping camera gestures combined with choreographed turns of the helicopter from which all footage was shot. As in California Growth Machine, the helicopter is used to interact with the surface of the water directly below by sculpting it into mercurial relief forms; though unseen, the helicopter becomes an integral part of the work itself. In a few long, nearly continuous takes, we trace the texture of liquid as it responds, following cascading sprays of water and the “eye of the storm” drawn by the wind of the rotor blades beneath.
The musical score by composer Michael Atkinson was created in response to the multiple layers of related activity evident in the movement of water in its manipulated context, from the surface to the deep.
FLUIDS DYNAMIC was filmed in high definition for large scale projection.
