Cyanotype on Habotai silk 70” x 160”

Soft Steel Tower is a cyanotype on Habotai silk, built up panel by panel from thirty-nine individual exposures, left unstretched so the tower it depicts can move the way steel never gets to. The softness is a speculation about the tower's form once its steel is subtracted and the image remains.

Cyanotype collage on watercolor paper 18” x 24

Waypoints: Folded Alidade, Manifold Survey, and Object Ecology layer Verplanck Colvin's nineteenth-century survey images with brush strokes and photographs of towers past and present. Survey mark, brushstroke, tower, and grain sit on the same plane here, none more author than another: all interpreters of the land.

Cyanotype collage on watercolor paper 18” x 24

Waypoints: Folded Alidade, Manifold Survey, and Object Ecology layer Verplanck Colvin's nineteenth-century survey images with brush strokes and photographs of towers past and present. Survey mark, brushstroke, tower, and grain sit on the same plane here, none more author than another: all interpreters of the land.

Cyanotype collage on watercolor paper 18” x 24 

Waypoints: Folded Alidade, Manifold Survey, and Object Ecology layer Verplanck Colvin's nineteenth-century survey images with brush strokes and photographs of towers past and present. Survey mark, brushstroke, tower, and grain sit on the same plane here, none more author than another: all interpreters of the land.

Cyanotype on drawing paper paper 24” x 80”

Loon Frequencies closes the series, a large scroll of expressionistic painted cyanotype on paper where the loon pattern appears on its own, unmixed with tower or survey. It turns fanciful and dense, intersecting and interfering with itself, its lines catching and doubling in the cyanotype pigment the way a call might fold back on its own echo. The scroll's own form, gathered and unfurling, is a kind of manifold in paper, amplifying the movement already restless in the pattern.

molecular mischief and information pathologies 1987-2023

projection detail - virus faces - 3d sculpture

a view of the exhibition at Hallwalls contemporary Art center in Buffalo, NY

Sculpture in view is Seedlings

Seedlings sculpture with projection and antenna

in view: posters from Artists and Models festival, photograph from Nature Abhors a Vacuum, and photographs from Disappearance of the Source

virus faces - generative AI video projection on sculptures with photographs

YoPlastic artifacts from the 2019 performance/installation- YoPlastic, genetically modified yogurt for social change, Virocode is developing a food source to digest the plastic we eat.

photographs from Disappearance of the Source along with an image and video from Nature Abhors a Vacuum

gelatin silver toned prints from Threshold Procedures - a CEPA metro-bus show installation project from 1987

chemical experiment and artist talk

A video animation made in connection to virocode's Seedling photographic series and antenna sculpture. Exhibited at Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center 2023

video, 16mm film

video, analog, digital, waveforms, 8mm film

Implant - video on small monitor on the floor

video from the photographic/film project, combustibles and smoke

YoPlastic, genetically modified yogurt for social change, Virocode is developing a food source to digest the plastic we eat.

itness in a landscape subsumed by intense natural light, blacked sand dunes pay in stark contrast to clear blue sky and horizons sun soaked with color-saturated sunsets over the Red Sea

wind-sculpted textures and remnants of sea and volcanoes. The rivers are long gone here and what remains are patterns, petroglyphs, camels, acacia, and remnants of Nabataean culture, bedouin, traders, and travelers.

hand painted cyanotype, Saudi Arabia, camel shepard

hand painted cyanotype, camels/docks, RedSea

hand painted cyanotype, Saudi Arabia, desert

hand painted cyanotype, Saudi Arabia, Bedouin

hand painted cyanotype, Saudi Arabia, desert

hand painted cyanotype, Saudi Arabia, desert, palm interleaf, Hegra

hand painted cyanotype, Saudi Arabia, desert, Hegra

hand painted cyanotype, Saudi Arabia, desert

hand painted cyanotype, Saudi Arabia, desert, cell tower, palms

hand painted cyanotype, Saudi Arabia, desert

hand painted cyanotype, Saudi Arabia, desert

hand painted cyanotype, Saudi Arabia, desert

video, animation, cellphone towers and graphics

a personal cell phone collection

video installation, Hallwalls

Visualizing emf waves and thought forms, a necessary method of understanding. dual projectors and interactive elements

Seed and Repeat is an interactive video installation where viewers are invited to connect with their past communication waves through vintage cell phones and projected light.

from curator John Massier:

virocode has long been concerned with investigating symbiotic relationships between the organic and inorganic—in a non-judgmental manner and with an open question about our collective relationship to the Anthropocene. By virtue of the wide lens through which virocode approaches the world, alterations within the current epoch are just that. In Seedlings, virocode observe the nascent and radically swift development of cell phone towers sprouting from the environment to nourish us in a manner not dissimilar from wheat or corn or anything else that springs from the ground. We are now the earth + cell phone towers. While many may apply ethical concerns to the growth of cell towers (or windmills), virocode smartly situate themselves at an objective distance and recognize the

obvious: “What we perceive as Being now includes the non-biological, that’s why we talk to objects”. And their classification of “seedlings” implicitly admits that our intense relationship to the non-biological has only just begun.

In "Seedlings" we observe the radical development of cell towers sprouting to nourish us in a manner not dissimilar from wheat or anything that springs from the ground. We are now the earth + towers. Some may apply ethical concerns to the growth of cell towers, our artwork strives to visualize the obvious. "What we perceive as Being includes the non-biological, that's why we talk to objects."

The jagged flowing structure upon which the Seedling’s photographs are applied alludes to the persistent and jagged path of communication as it courses across the landscape. The photographs are printed on metal and installed on a structure that keeps them angled to the wall. The transmission signals have been visualized in the shapes of interconnected blooming and blossoming wave patterns. Seedlings consists of 28 images joined together in segments to make a continuous work 24’ long.

Seedlings (installation detail), cell phone towers, 3d graphics, photographs on aluminum and metal armature

Seedlings (installation detail), cell phone towers, 3d graphics, photographs on aluminum and metal armature

Seedlings (installation detail), cell phone towers, 3d graphics, photographs on aluminum and metal armature

Seedling (installation detail), cell phone towers, 3d graphics, photographs on aluminum and metal armature

Seedling (installation detail), cell phone towers, 3d graphics, photographs on aluminum and metal armature

Seedling (installation detail), cell phone towers, 3d graphics, photographs on aluminum and metal armature

We saw these towers 1

We went to these towers 2

——————————————————————-§§§

We recorded these towers 3

These towers face other towers 4

We could see those towers too 5

Those towers transmit to these towers 6

‘,====

Those towers make waves 7

We cannot see those waves 8

The waves reshape other waves 9

We made waves you can see 10

—————————————————————===////////

These waves connect the towers 11

The towers connect the waves 12

—————————————————-=======

We plant towers we feel we need 13

There are many towers we plant 14

We feel good about the towers 15

They make waves for us to need with 16

———————————————————————————|||||€

We plant more towers 17

And feel more waves 18

We change how we feel 19

About these towers 20

The towers are seedlings 21

There will always be towers 22

Footnotes:

1 as of 2020 there were 417,215 cell towers registered in the US

2 images were recorded in the USA by land travel from east to west and north to south boundaries

3 over 800 files generated

4-5 towers are generally oriented along elevated sight line reckoning with triangulation to other towers via python implementation

6-8 wavelengths of 10-1000m and frequencies of 450-2700 MHz are characteristic of radio frequency energies (sub infrared and sub visible spectrum). Though these energies are not enough to ionize (break chemical bonds) there is increasing evidence that these energies communicate more than just the visible and auditory data we use them for.

9-10 There are numerous sources of EMF disruption and distortion. Any energy source from a cardiac implant to the sun generates EMFs and the interference patterns are dynamic. The transmission patterns from cell towers can vary (“orthongal frequency division multiplexing”) and software is used to encode a meaning humans can appreciate. These image captures also use software to encode meaning to appreciate.

11-12 The same physical properties of energy and mass interactions that effect biological entities also effect non biological beings.

13 Average cost to construct a cell tower in the USA is $150,000- $200,000

14-16 Humans have seeded the earth with many types of inorganic manufactured objects. These objects are our constant companions with which we have co-evolved.

17 Humans have planted earth objects on other celestial objects, primarily on moons, planets, asteroids, and a star which we have not visited. These plantings will be there to greet us if we arrive.

18 Organic and inorganic objects require the energy of various EMF waves to enable their existence.

19-20 Reality does not change. Our perception of reality changes.

21-22 What we perceive as Being now includes the non-biological, that’s why we talk to objects.

photographs, fire, melted cup, diptych

pigmented inkjet print on watercolor paper

lights, towers, mountains, mound

pigmented inkjet print on watercolor paper

moon, trees, streetlight

pigmented inkjet print on watercolor paper

smoke, forest, empty chair, pigmented inkjet print on watercolor paper

Fragmented projection of sequences that signal an understanding of landscapes.

The eErie is an interactive sound and image installation in which Lake Erie water is used to generate eerie mutated tones. Sound is generated through an artist-built waterphone housed within a sculptural installation in grain elevator ruins. As the waterphone is played samples are generated and added, the cacophony of sound combines the players and the lakewater through physical soundmaking. The installation space is filled with diffracting colored light and invites the public to play the waterphone and evoke The eErie. This is scary stuff.

Lake Erie

installation/performance of The Eerie at Music is Art

detail of the Waterphone

Lake Erie and breakwall

Lake Erie sunrise

Lake Erie communication tower

Lake Erie

Lake Erie power plant

Lake Erie sunset

Claudia and waterphone

installation/performance of The Eerie at Music is Art, waterphone being played

Downstream of the Buffalo River is Lake Erie. These photographs of Lake Erie were made during a three day sail from Buffalo to Cleveland. The sail was part of the project Delegation with Asad Raza. Over the course of three days and two nights the project was an immersive lesson in connection between our two cities, our geography, the bugs and particles in the atmosphere, and each other. These images exist in the network of human, nonhuman life, and also non-living materials and objects. Our waterways connect us all and is a system that can help us build a non hierarchical rhizomatic structure with new networks of connection.

What can we find that connects ourselves to the thing that connects us to each other?

The eErie photographs in an installation by Mary Mattingly

a component of The eErie auditory art installation; photographic series of nine photos mounted on wood block, 10”x8”

The eerie waterphone graphic

rear projection, figure, doorway

generative AI and virus images, doorway, rear projection

figure, doorway, rear projection

A video documentation of our project SIS rear-projected on the gallery entrance door at the Anderson Gallery in Buffalo, New York. The project explores the connection between civic alert systems (siren towers) and group immunity. The video includes machine learning software processing photographic datasets, mixing flower and towers, and covid 19 models and human faces.

"Shared Immune Systems"  2020 (TRT 12:47) transforms the SUNY UB Anderson Gallery schoolhouse doors into a beacon of light, color, and power. The video projection is seen from the street and lawn. We share immune systems and common disease pools with living things and inanimate objects. These relationships guide our alert systems and color our understanding of the past, our actions in the present, and our plans for the future. The story is animated through biologic and machine learning tools which come together to trace interdependence and investigate new relationships between living things, viruses, and inorganic objects. 

melted spoons and yogurt containers sculpture

opening night

at Box Gallery in Buffalo NY, 2019

with Kristen Kelley and Paloma D’Auria

plastic eating bacteria and plastic yogurt containers - sculptures

photograph of straws and rock iron model

sculpture, Claudia D’Auria

plastic eating yogurt bacteria in action

Streptococcus - YoPlastic

sculpture, Claudia D’Auria

Claudia D’Auria with Streptococcus wallpaper, YoPlastic

YoPlastic storefront , chairs, pillows and wallpaper

video still of the performance and video

People eat plastic. People cannot digest plastic. Ideonella sakaiensis digests plastic. Virocode is developing a food source to digest the plastic we eat. Human trials await your participation. To find out more about this opportunity and the science behind it enjoy your visit to the YoPlastic experience at Box gallery, or enjoy this video documentation of YoPlastic the play

covid-shutdown art installation in a home, projections, sculpture, tree

covid shutdown art installation in a home, projections, sculpture, tree, and the artists

video segment, dual projections - rear projection window

projection video for installation

ice cream sculptures, bike, video, and photographs

In a culture where abundance, facts, and liberty are taken for granted, reality can be the most precious delicacy to perish. Bike Cart Crash #NoPlanForTheFuture is a photographic and sculptural art installation that recreates the site of an accident as a suggestive cultural metaphor for climate disaster . In the installation a topsy turvy ice cream cart exposes a bittersweet punchline, and to some serves America it’s just desserts.

ice cream sculptures, bike, video, and photographs

bike, video, and photographs

ice cream sculptures, bike, video, and photographs

ice cream sculptures, stairs

ice cream sculptures, bike, video, and photographs

ice cream sculptures, bike, video, and photographs

Paul Robeson Galleries, Rutgers University, Newark Campus

Paul Robeson Galleries, Rutgers University, Newark Campus

What at first appeared to us as a scene of violence soon resolved to be a slow consumption. link

Membranes span the heat and pressure of the time beyond our lives abandon.

Running through, and spilling from such a small wonder propels our dialogue with the mineral world.

I played for years in the dry riverbed until a loud sound collapsed the canyon walls Now we can live here. It’s a bad idea whose time has come.

A great unconformity dissolves between us.

Catastrophic cures favor the breadth of our shared immune systems.

Grown apart on opposite paths only to embrace again at the frontier of oblivion.

From a wounded place, a viscous swell gives rise to a manifold of deep-water horizons.

Document that includes the audio and kinetic elements of the ReNatured project installed at Art Play/Ground in Medina, NY.

A video document of the kinetic, sculptural, images and audio components of the ReNatured project installed at Art Play/Ground in Medina, NY. October 2018

sculpture of a spilled strawberry milkshake, and video

No Plan For The Future is a social media image based project published on Instagram, ongoing since 11/9/2016.

“The disaster ruins everything, all the while leaving everything intact.”
- Maurice Blanchot, The Writing of the Disaster

The images here are an intersection of events, transitions of form, disruptions, destructions, and loss of origins. The crush, splash or splatters in these images serve as a marker of outright immediacy. The slowly unfolding cultural accident that we are in the midst of is a cold, incalculable lunacy, which to some yields a bittersweet punch line.

No Plan for the Future revises political cuisine in a melee of indigestion. The imagery infiltrates the screen-time that consumes our connection between experience, recognition, and reflection by working to interrupt the amnesia perpetuated by social media platforms such as Instagram. No Plan For The Future is a resistance to a collective memory loss and presents the potential of small tragedies as reminders to us of what we have always known, that the future is uncertain (and planning is a necessity).

- virocode

photographs and video

at the State University of New York at Buffalo art Gallery

Installation view at Screen Projects public art State University fo New York At Buffalo, spilled blueberry milkshake sculpture.

installation view

Albright -Knox Art Gallery October 21, 2011-January 29, 2012
Organized by Curator Heather Pesanti for the Gallery of New Media

Nine of the works in the series

Albright -Knox Art Gallery October 21, 2011-January 29, 2012
Organized by Curator Heather Pesanti for the Gallery of New Media

A Disappearance of the Source features works related to virocode’s “Evolving Moisture” series, in which the artists utilize high-speed cameras to explore science, motion, and time through the movement of gases and liquids, including the rapid and potentially explosive expansion of energy.

Inkjet print, carbon, and beeswax

40 x 27 x 2.5

Inkjet print, carbon, and beeswax

40 x 27 x 2.5

single-channel video projection with sound

Running time: 6 minutes

Inkjet print, carbon, and beeswax

40 x 27 x 2.5

Albright -Knox Art Gallery October 21, 2011-January 29, 2012

Albright -Knox Art Gallery October 21, 2011-January 29, 2012
Organized by Curator Heather Pesanti for the Gallery of New Media

A Disappearance of the Source features works related to virocode’s “Evolving Moisture” series, in which the artists utilize high-speed cameras to explore science, motion, and time through the movement of gases and liquids, including the rapid and potentially explosive expansion of energy.

Inkjet print, carbon, and beeswax

40 x 27 x 2.5

Inkjet print, carbon, and beeswax

40 x 27 x 2.5

sound triggered photographs of hand built explosive devices with various minerals and gunpowder

long exposure of a fuze illuminated while burning, inkjet print of metal with encaustic wax pour on the surface.

A single channel video that explore the relationship between what we know and what we think we know in which a noted and very well respected String theorist inhabits a computer game to test out possibilities. Educational films and physics experiments are observed and then unobserved to exhibit improbable qualities. A small child talks to a bag of water which is all that remains of her dead uncle and effortlessly computes an irrational solution in order to determine the number sequence for her dot-to dot puzzle.

installation view, Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center