September 25 – October 11
Reception: Friday, September 26, 5-7pm
Location: Backspace Gallery, Art Lofts, 111 N Frances St, Madison, WI
Who deserves access to the power system, who deserves to be in control of the power system, and what occurs when the system which causes climate change is brought down by the changing climate, itself?
In February 2021, storm Uri brought record cold across the state of Texas and brought about one of the worst energy infrastructure failures in US history, leaving 80 million without power and killing an estimated 246 to 700 people. While the public likely remembers news coverage stating that “infrastructure failure” was the cause of this event, this exhibition will criticize the political and financial underpinnings behind this tragedy. Texas’ deep deregulation of its power grid caused a hyper-individualism that left the state, its power grid (ERCOT), and its inhabitants, to survive the storm alone.
Using field recordings from the Houston Ship Channel, widely recognized as the largest petrochemical complex in the United States, the exhibition will represent the events of the 2021 Texas Storm Uri and consequent blackout in distorted time. In six channels of data visualization and sonification, the exhibition will examine the detrimental effects of the hyper-individualization of the ERCOT grid.
Huge thanks to the Kohler Foundation.