Aground out

[Similar to Aground app, intended for outdoor projection.]

A sailing vessel appears held in suspension, cut off from foreground and background. Current weather and historic data specific to the Atlantic passage further shapes the scene. Not a video game, the Aground Series is slow cinema or tv: nothing happens in the sense of plot or an open gaming narrative. Instead, the screen frames a middle ground with subtle shifts in color and motion. Sparked by J.M.W. Turner’s The Slave Ship, the Aground Series is as much about politics as aesthetics, and how they occupy the same space.

Aground is evidentiary realism: scenes are created and set in motion with a list of rules; machine/computer views and captures evidence of itself through the loops; video results are to be enjoyed first for their formal qualities, then relevance to context, both current and historical. Obvious to the eye, not so much to the mind.