A Division Of Meaning is a video work recording the walking path of a concrete trail in the Great Trinity Forest, a 24 sq. km area of urban forest in South Dallas. This path is a single line extending from the trailhead to the upper banks of the Trinity River where the walkway then loops back on itself and hikers must return the way they entered.
To encourage immersion and connection to the natural environment by implementing a human interface seems ironic- there is a tension stemming from the desire to exist in nature. Humans are embedded entities, members of the environment, and yet too much unguided human activity has repeatedly led to the disruption, if not destruction, of that environment. Perhaps in an effort to allay this disruption, we choose to create something stable, sterile, and altogether alien to the environment we attempt to connect with.
Art represents a barter activity that cannot be regulated by any currency, or any “common substance”. It is the division of meaning in the wild state- an exchange whose form is defined by that of the object itself, before being so defined by definitions foreign to it. The artist’s practice, and his behavior as producer, determines the relationship that will be struck up with his work. In other words, what he produces, first and foremost, is relations between people and the world, by way of aesthetic objects. -Relational Aesthetics by Nicolas Bourriaud