Water the Floorboards (2021) video documentation

FESCH.TV INFORMIERT:

„Water the Floorboards“
(warped wood, glass, rainwater, photos printed on vellum of rubbing trees, heat lamp, water drip, desk drawer, participant)

Jacksun Bein

“ There are no large pots in the house, we had to go to the house that moves when you walk to borrow a big enough pot for the soup.

Flood waters in the house give the tiles what they need to grow Irises all throughout. ”

a. (glass, rainwater)
At the entrance to the room, the door is held open by a doorstopper. The doorstopper is made of glass and is filled with collected rainwater.

b. (warped wood plank, heat lamp)
On the ground lies a plank of wood, the wood has been warped over time into a curved shape. This happens when water evaporates at different rates within hyper-localized areas of the wood. Above the warped plank of wood hangs a red heat lamp that warms up the room.

c. (glass, rainwater, participant)
Similarly constructed as the doorstopper, at one of the two windows of the room, within the space between the window pane and the screening, there is a thin aquarium-like structure made of glass filled with rainwater. The light shines through the water and magnifies and projects bright light onto the wood floor. When the sun is high in the sky, the water’s surface acts as a fluid mirror, projecting the vibrations of the room onto the ceiling, consequentially implicating the viewer walking around the space as a key component of the work.

d. (glass, photos printed on vellum of rubbing trees, t-pins)
On the wall which holds the entry way, there are two photographs. These photographs are printed on vellum using black ink, and affixed to the floor molding of the wall using a thin pane of glass and silver-toned metal t-pins. The vellum arches backwards as the floor molding ends, as the photograph is not adhered to the glass pane. The two photographs are of rubbing trees in Louisiana. Rubbing trees are trees that have a thin vertical area of splintered, raw bark. Every year, deer grow new antlers and when they grow in, they are encased in a protective, nutrient layer of skin; being “in velvet”. When the time comes, deer rub their encased antlers on trees to tear off the skin layer. This doesn’t harm the tree, however, if a tree is rubbed around it’s entire circumference, then the water and nutrients cannot rise and travel throughout the entirety of the tree. Slightly through the photographs of the trees, you can see the different shadows made by the curvatures of the floor molding.

e. (rainwater, drip, desk drawer)
In the diagonal corner to the entryway, a large wooden desk is pushed against two walls. Out of the farthest to the left of the three drawers, a small drip of rainwater steadily begins to pool onto the floor. One might imagine what is to happen if this continues for eternity, eating away a small hole in the wood.

potentiality, sensation, imagined and real signs.