The Fog: Act 1 (short preview) – FESCH.TV

The Fog: Act 1 (short preview) & FESCH.TV:

The Fog
By: Chelsea Thompto

This body of work centers around the politics of knowledge making, data collection, and trans visibility through an exploration of fog as a common subject/trope of horror narratives as well as metaphor used in military strategy. The questions driving this work include:

Why has fog been figured as a menace in the popular imagination? Can fog be an aspirational figure for trans embodiment and resistance? What would embodiment styled after fog feel and look like?

Act 1
From foghorns to the “fog of war” to military efforts to disperse fog, the phenomenon has long been at odds with militaristic and capitalistic ideas of progress and control. In obscuring coasts, roads, and runways, fog denies us the situational awareness upon which so much of contemporary life is built. In its denial of ocular slight, fog highlights the value we place on seeing as knowing and opens up space to consider who gets to see and to what ends do they use that sight?

This scene is viewed using an orbiting camera similar to those found in 3D modeling and map software. The audio in this scene mimics (in a digital and distorted fashion) the sound of fog horns on the coast. The texts for this scene are drawn from scientific papers about fog dispersal, military texts about the fog or war, and economic texts about fog’s negative impact. Taken together, these elements are meant to render fog as a subject to be scrutinized.

This work was commissioned by the San José Museum of Art

(Note: Due to the nature of ASCII art, this scene may appear glitchy or unclear depending on your playback settings and hardware configuration.)