This was our personal, lived response to William Cronon’s article, “The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature”–our way to artistically come to terms with the contradictions of life amidst networked environments, from the biological and industrial to the cultural and digital. This video was also one of our early attempts to challenge the separation of technology from the natural world and to do so without naturalizing the digital nor romanticizing the “natural.”
“Wilderness Trouble” (3:30) has been translated into Japanese, Polish, and Spanish for screenings and exhibitions. The European Media Art Festival (2007) in Osnabrück, Germany, selected it to be part of a special tour (“Along Amongst Friends,” 2008), which traveled to seventeen art venues in Lebanon, Germany, Poland, Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Netherlands. Here is a selected list of “Wilderness Trouble” screenings from 2007-2010:
Filmwerkstatt, Düsseldorf, Germany
Volkshochschule, Erftstadt, Germany
De Balie, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Volksbildungswerk, Eschborn, Germany
Cinema, Münster, Germany
KoKi, Freiburg, Germany
ZOOM Kino, Brühl, Germany
Institute of Art & Design, Milwaukee, USA
Goethe-Institut Beirut, Lebanon
Kino 46, Bremen, Germany
Centrum Sztuki Wspólczesnej Laznia, Gdansk, Poland
CANTE, San Luis Potosí, Mexico
Museo de Arte, Zapopan, Jal., Mexico
Laboratorio Arte Alameda, Centro Histórico, Mexico
Centro Cultural Aleman A.C., Monterrey, Mexico
Fundación Ludwig de Cuba, Havanna, Cuba
Museo de Arte y de la Cultura, San José, Puerto Rico
Exit Art Gallery, NYC, USA
Sonoma Art Museum, California, USA
Ginza Art Laboratory, Tokyo, Japan
Artivistic, Montréal, Québec, Canada
University of Tasmania, School of Visual & Performing Arts, Tasmania
Devenport Regional Gallery and the Centre for the Arts in Hobart, Tasmania
Raw Video Art Space, Brooklyn, USA
Museum of New Art, Detroit, Michigan, USA
Magmart Video Festival, Naples, Italy