Ohm: A Collaborative Installation by Phillip Stearns and Lewis Keller

Ohm - Phillip Stearns and Lewis Keller

Dimensions: 20'x3' minimum (variable) - installation
Medium: mixed - stone, jute twine, cinder block, electronics

On one end of a path of river stones, is a rock tied in a harness of natural fibers. A string runs from that harness, along the path of stones, and is tied to a motor on the other end. The motor turns slowly in faint, steady pulses, slowly winding up the string and pulling the rock forward along the path of stones laid before it. The motor thumps along like clock work and at times nothing but the faintest of scrapes can be heard as the rock moves forward. At other times the rock clacks as it tumbles over stones and remains still, silent for intervals. The rock completes its journey from the start of the path to the motor at its end over the course of several hours.

Ohm is a contemplative, time based installation that explores the notions of inevitability, indeterminacy, fate, temporality, the event, and resistance as they relate to the imposition of human will on the natural environment via mechanistic systems. An alternate read on the piece reveals the rock as a sign of the individual in modern society, signifying the bonds we enter with modernity in the pursuit of the desire for progress and development. Though pulled forward by the unrelenting, indifferent and militaristic regular mechanism of the motor, the rock---our traveler---does not go forward willingly, does not resist, always takes the path of least resistance.

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