––– FREE––– VISKUBIT, 2023
~325 X 650 feet / 100 X 200 meters
Stöðvarfjörður, Iceland Stills from video documentation via drone and hand-held camera; in progress.
'-viskubit' is a fragment of the Icelandic word, ‘samviskubit’, and translates roughly to ‘bit/bite of wisdom’.
This piece considers intersections across multiple planes of experience;
- a meeting of (human) body and (telluric) body (and other species between)
- a collision of (executive function) disability and (physical) ability
- a handshake of off-grid freedom and perpetual surveillance
via subtractive processes of hand and foot striking the land and ‘its’ inhabitants, informed by:
desire paths, deer trails, oomingmak lays, meditation labyrinths, geoglyphs.
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RECOHERE, 2021
6 x 120 x 200 ft. SM Dyneema® on Nipmuc Land, Beal’s Preserve; Southborough, MA. https://artonthetrails.com
Awarded Juror’s Prize by Sarah Montross, Associate Curator at deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum.
“For this year’s Jurors Award I selected the installation by Gabe Duggan.
I was so intrigued by the ambition and scale of their project that spans the small pond in Beal’s Preserve.
I felt the project merged new craft technologies and site-specific land art installation into an original art form.
The dynamic tension of the Dyneema formed a kind of spider web across the water.
I liked that the work suggested a very open kind of mending as there was a lot of space around the threads.
RECOHERE also made me as the viewer look more closely at the stunning natural setting of Ice Pond, and in that, I felt a sense of restoration and renewed curiosity.”
-Sarah Montross, Associate Curator at deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum.
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no one knows, 2020
30X200ft. DSM Dyneema® on Corchaug Land, Treiber Farms; North Fork, NY: Cooler Ranch. http://www.cooler-gallery.com/cooler-ranch documentation via (non-consensual) satellite i.e.Gmaps; drone; details at day and night; and social media post by Stranger Things celebrity Maya Hawke.
The words ‘no one knows or sees the deep and truest’ surface and disappear as viewer perspective changes with movement through the space as DSM dyneema (white, gossamer) and black synthetic polymers are backgrounded by dark (treeline) or light (sky).
This text is an excerpt written by the artist and more directly communicated by Paulo Freire in ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed’.
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EITHER WAY, 2020
6 X 40 X 300 ft. DSM Dyneema on Tuscarora Land, Wildside, Greenville, NC: Greenville Parks and Recreation. https://youtu.be/P_0ENYi6uxE Tension is built across an ambiguous phrase that emanates an seemingly inevitable, ominous tone of Autumn 2020.
This phrase was intended to imply the surviving of oppressed entities regardless of an oppressor’s abuse of power.
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not the whalesong but, 2020
12 X 16 X 20 feet
(lasercut) plexiglass, Dyneema (synthetic fiber), ink on glassine (paper), single channel video projection.
To better understand our relationship to water we might begin with data and visualization; quantifying depths (bathymetry) and observing the forms that surface. Bathymetry echoes through
related and disparate natural forms; freeze/thaw cycles in puddles, rings of woodgrain, and wavelengths of sound.
When our species records and absorbs sounds pulsating through water, such as the whale song, we simultaneously document the individual sparking the sound and the space between us and its source.
We discover that sound, form, and space are inter-reliant. From the ground we stand on it becomes easy to invert realities; large masses of data support smaller portions, positioned supplementally
above their base. With water and weight, small data sinks below large.
We are acclimated to influences on our perception, unaware of our blindspots. Predator and prey push and pull, on land and in the sea, driving the currents of endless life cycles.
Lines denoting vegetation, teeth, and tools of flight repeat themselves to accomplish great achievements in survival. We observe from the outside that these forms reflect each other.
Process Documentation.
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work with water 02, 2019
6X6X8 ft.
lasercut plexiglass, nylon, ink on paper, polymer fibers
At Anchorlight; Raleigh, NC.
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work with water 01 / mymisogyny, 2018
installation: 3 X 6 X 10 feet
found steel, polymers, silk, paper, concrete, water, water pump
(Written about in "2019 Our Top 5 Art Shows of 2018; INDY week," Sarah Edwards, Chris Vitiello, print) work with water 01 was installed at the Carrack Modern (Durham NC) as part of social-collaborative performance, mymisogyny (see EXPANSIVE>FACILITATIONS). Water was pumped for three weeks over a composite of corrosive and vulnerable objects, running cyclically - into a basin at the bottom and pumped back to the top - corroding the work and its supports.
––– within, without, 2016
6 X 8 X 16 feet; steel, polymer fibers, magnets
(Featured in NY Textile Month's coverage)
within, without was created in the gestation period leading up to the 2016 US Presidential Election.
This installation represents tensions between systems of rigidity and fluidity, as they are posed in opposition to, and in negligence of, each other. within, without highlights the difference in converstaions that comprise debates, especially political. Parties attempt to speak on a shared issue while not sharing language.
Perceptions become evermore binary, broken down into being one with a group "within", or Other and lacking, "without".
––– altared spine, 2014
8 X 12 X 18 feet ; polymer fibers, tar, wood, rocks, glass
(featured in Gothamist.com coverage: 2014 Lynch, Scott; “Photos, Video: Fanciful Art Takes Over Governors Island’s...” Gothamist, web )
altared spine was created in reflection of long-term impact of urban life and survival on an individual. Living and observing life in New York City brings specific challenges to daily existence, wearing on the psyche through encounters with others under similar pressures, and less exposure to other species and living environments. altared spine considers the affects of psychological burdens on the physical health and survival of a member in urban society, dichotomies structured to render spirituality and science in opposition, and the resulting disambiguity with one's own body and its ailments when living amongst an ill-environment.
