Archive Film: Roosevelt Island

Roosevelt Island is one of the hidden gems of New York City. It's a small island nestled between Queens and Manhattan and can only be reached by an aerial Tram that parallels the Queensboro Bridge. Mystery surrounds it. Half of the island is sealed off from the public -- the ruins of a derelict psychiatric colony from the turn of the century. This film isn't about that though -- it's about my love affair with it's Tram.

I used to spend lots of time in New York wandering around with an old film camera. I'm happy to be able to give them new life here on the internet. This is from my personal archive, enjoy!

In current news I'm finishing up another project for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game for their Invasive Species program. It's been an interesting process -- most of the work was done in the research phase where I gathered all my source images from a variety of research groups in the lower 48. It took a long time. For example, can you tell me where to get underwater images of a New Zealand Mud Snail? What about an escaped farmed Atlantic Salmon?

I thought so.

Homer to Amsterdam

I was recently given the opportunity to voice a piece/performance for artist/filmmaker Pablo Pijnappel in Amsterdam's lovely Rijksacademie. It was awesome to reunite with old friends in old Amsterdam and be a part of the art world again. 8 years ago, Pablo and I studied Media Arts together in Amsterdam at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie of Art & Design.

The show was a photography installation of Pablo's images of Homer. It was surreal for my family to travel half way across the world only to be suddenly immersed in Homer all over again. Taken in a European context, Homer Alaska is totally alien -- beyond the end of the road for sure. I voiced a wonderful story that he had written, and then performed live readings of the story for the start of the open studios (of which another 50 artists were having concurrent gallery shows).

I heard a rumor that 10,000 people from all over Europe converge at the Rijksacademie over a period of 3 days for the open studios.