TRACE (part 1) a performance art piece by Theresa Byrnes

TRACE

Howl festival 2007

A 100 gallon oil spill.

Performance art


TRACE a performance by Theresa Byrnes
Exploring our spiritual relationship with crude oil.

Crude oil is the blood of the planet, created by the compression and heating of ancient organic materials over geological time. Oil is formed from the preserved remains of prehistoric zooplankton and algae, which have settled to the sea (or lake) bottom in large quantities under anoxic conditions.

TRACE contemplates our relationship with Crude oil; liberated by and victims of its exploitation -- the substance of time immemorial, we are caught in the middle. We struggle to define our role in this archetypal ménage that could lead us toward annihilation.

The earth is our body, a holy ground of all matter recycling itself. The spiritual lesson inherent in our dependency on; destruction of the environment for; and geo political warfare to gain control of crude oil may be to respect and connect our lives to our ancestry going back to the beginning of life on earth.


Artist Theresa Byrnes
Videographer Paul Garin

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• trace
• crude
• oil-spill
• oil-slick
• spiritual
• ecofeminist
• performance
• art
• australian
• artist
• New
• York
• Kali
• exon
• valdez
• bp
• gulf

[james82408]

this is the most powerful performance i have seen yet, totally inspiring, and in nz there was a oil leak outside of taraunga killing thousand of wildlife, struggling for air, trying to battle the weight of the oil which caused many birds to drown while fish polluted, and dead, wildlife struggles at our expense

[crestfallenraven]

Profoundly beautiful. Thank you.

[therealjamesbud]

Today I was in wall mart looking all around the store. Every package is so well designed... all this stuff is like begging for you to pick it up, to fall in love with it. What ever item it was. Big HDTV caught my eyes. I felt a tug on my brain near the temples. Like a magnet pulling my head to look at the screen, no joke. I turned away & saw myself as in this oil covered Trace preformance. We all are drowing the earth with our compsumsion of products all made from oil.. Wake Up before its 2la8

[cibercat85]

wow... it makes me sad yet mesmerized. i like it.