Several Circles, 2010
Version 1: dual channel 35mm film installation, sound, 5:35sec
Version 2: dual channel digital installation, sound, 5:35sec
Each screen: approx. 355cm wide (total width: 725cm wide)

Several Circles consists of a two channel video installation that explores the myriad associations that link the revolutions of the 19th century steam engine with the 20th century American automobile engine. Set to a soundtrack of Detroit techno music, the project articulates a 100-year relationship between multiple forms of mechanical power, a span that begins with the rise of American industrialism in the 1880s and continues, a century later, with its decline and transformation.

Depicted on two screens simultaneously are side-by-side tracking shots of an 1880s steam-powered paddleboat and a 1980s Ford traveling down the river, each filming and being filmed by the other in a performance structurally derived from Dan Graham's Two Correlated Rotations. The performance was originally shot on location digitally. The edited footage was then played back on an LCD television, and recaptured on 35mm film in the manner of a bootleg (a film of a film). In a bootleg of a bootleg, the digital version of Several Circles has been produced by digitally refilming the analog 35mm projection -- genealogy of progress between film and video that echoes that of the boat and automobile.

The installation is set to a soundtrack by Detroit techno legend Theo Parrish and remixed by Carl Craig. As the traditional centre of the American auto industry, Detroit is also remembered for the musical legacies of Motown and rock, as well as techno – a genre that emerged in 1980s Motor City with the importation of foreign drum machines and synthesizers (a phenomenon that parallels the displacement of America's auto industry). As the cameras slowly zoom in, closing in on the paddle wheel and the car tire, the rotations of each are reflected in the looping machine-based rhythms of the music.

Several Circles was commissioned by Or Gallery, Vancouver