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![]() Brian Collier, "Some Properties of Water: Phase 1, Collection and Documentation", installation view, CEPA, Buffalo, NY, 2003. |
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Brian Collier Some Properties of Water Water is paradoxically one of the most intimate and one of the most alien substances known to man. This substance makes up approximately seventy percent of our bodies, yet we have relatively little knowledge about the places where it is most abundant, the oceans. Our perceptions of water's familiarity and distance are directly connected to the contexts in which we encounter it. So are our perceptions of its aesthetic qualities: although water, as a liquid, has a "form," that form exists only in relation to a container, an environment, a context. Water is nothing if not variable; the differences between tap water and ocean water seem so great it is easy to forget that, barring a few minerals and chemicals, they are essentially made out of the same stuff. Both have similar physical properties; both undergo the same phase transitions from solid to liquid to gas. How then do we perceive the water in a puddle, or in an ocean? The central role that perception plays in our everyday experiences of water is illustrated by the play of forms that I address in this project. By removing a test-tube sample of water from an ocean, I am changing its perceived form; am I removing its ocean-ness in this act of removing its "vastness" and its "enigma"? By removing many different samples from their original contexts and displaying them together in a homogeneous manner, can I produce a situation where ocean and puddle evoke the same perceptual experience? Another aspect of "context" in this project relates to the hand that moves the water from one place to another. This project allowed me to draw out aspects of the artist's role-playing, especially during the collection process. Although I always see myself in the role of the artist, I'm interested in the possibility that the viewer might perceive me in different roles. As I collected samples of water from various sites, I was aware that onlookers might view my activities as either suspicious or worrying. What could be thought of a stranger with a box full of test tubes near a large body of water? I could be perceived either as a scientist testing the water for some terrible, unnamed contaminant or (especially in the current political climate) as someone maliciously causing water contamination. This awareness brought to mind issues related to pollution, the relative safety of public water supplies, and the fact that truly "pure" water is exceedingly rare. As central as "context" is to this project of conceptualizing water, there is also an important shift in content: during the course of the exhibition, the water samples in the trays will evaporate. The ephemeral, transient nature of water becomes visible in the exhibition space. After the unifying elements of the water samples evaporate, only their differences will remain—as dried residue on the glass bottoms of the trays. "Some Properties of Water" is a process-centered project where water samples were poured into glass-bottomed trays and left to evaporate into the exhibition space. Eighty-one framed archival digital prints, eighty one glass-bottomed trays on a custom-made wood table, three collection boxes containing eighty-one Plexiglas test tubes, and eighty-one water samples. Dimensions variable.
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