Water Birth, 2020

This AR piece was presented with the LAST/RESORT Club in our Garden del Rio Grande at the 2020 Ars Electronica festival. We built virtual models to be situated on a monumental plinth within a plot of land in the San Luis Valley of Southern Colorado. Water Birth challenges the assumptions we hold about monuments, by situating a nude female form created out of digital water. In the arid lands in Southern Colorado, water is a commodity whose life giving qualities and its rarity make it a beautiful gift and treasured resource. This is not unlike the miraculous capabilities of a human womb.

There are many ways to go about producing a 3D model of a human form, but for this, without pause, I set my phone up and took pictures of myself on my living room floor as reference. It was an oddly intimate experience modeling my own body in all of its curves and flaws and glory. When looking at yourself through the pixelated glass of a computer screen it can be tempting to pinch the soft edges into more desirable shapes. But instead, I built planes around this body and its belly and its powerful thighs. I chose this pose because I realized when I grow anxious, I have a tendency to clutch my breasts, and it brings me the soft tender pressure that momentarily relieves my stress, and brings me back into my body.

She is built of water and surrounded by desert. She is ephemeral, but she is also real.