wilderness-film-studio — Jeremiah Barber

Wilderness Film Studio
Functional Sculptural Objects
2015-2020

“The spores of a plant yield a brilliant and momentary flash” -American Photographic Times, 1888

Wilderness Film Studio is a years-long sculpture and research project that reimagines the photographic process by establishing animal and plant materials in critical roles. This series draws on real historical examples, while speculating what might result from technology that is wild and animated, guided by the expansive sensory adaptations of plants and animals.

Above (top to bottom):
Striped Maple C-Stands
Maple wood, cold cast aluminum, 3D prints, cinema lamp and digital pigment print

Skunk Microphone
Skunk hide and handmade hair wefts, foam, shotgun microphone

Calibration Set
Clam-bored sandstone, plywood

Striped Maple Baby Adapters
Maple wood, stainless steel, cold cast aluminum, bondo

This series is equal parts art, research, and experimental engineering. Film is historically a biological medium; the 19th century camera was considered equivalent to a microscope or x-ray machine. Time-lapse and slow motion were developed to film nature at its own pace, while early photographs were lit by the burning of moss spores. Wilderness Film Studio cross-pollinates film’s biological roots, by embedding animal adaptations into the process of image and sound recording.

In the alternative history of Wilderness Film Studio, multispecies collaboration gives audiences access to the umvelt (“the world as experienced by an organism”) of maple trees, skunks, and jellyfish. Speculating interspecies dialogue, this work presents tools of perception that reorder the hierarchy we place on animal and plant life.