ADAPTATIONS FOR CAPITALIST RUINS
@ THE NATIONAL ARTS CENTRE’s KIPNES LANTERN
Video, 5 minute loop
Adaptations for Capitalist Ruins was commissioned by The National Arts Centre for the Kipnes Lantern, a hexagonal glass building, four of whose faces are composed of LED screens. Viewers never see the entire video surface; their perspective changes with their position on the street. This constraint became both a consideration and a tool for storytelling. Selected clips of the documentation are from different street positions and from various points throughout the narrative.
This work uses extremophiles (microbes able to thrive in extreme environments deemed inhospitable to humans) as a speculative lens to imagine resilience and responsiveness in a site of extreme abandonment. Called in by the scientists, the microbes investigate the landscape, awkward and hesitant at first, until their movements build a choreography that dislodges the abandonment molecules from the site. For the scientists, the microbes leave movement notations and the encouragement that they too can become dancers.