In his works Extended Play and Re-Engineering, Steven Warwick (aka Heatsick) loosely constructs potential situations that unfold into a sculptural experience of a moment, an idea, or a place. He then manipulates these plastic environments: slowing down or speeding up flows to explore all the events that exist in-between.
Recently, Warwick was an artist-in-residency at the Villa Aurora in Los Angeles for 3 months, during which he spent time travelling around the city and its surrounds. Towards the end of his stay, he staged a performance (which included playing the Villa’s newly-restored organ) and released an accompanying soundtrack, ‘Reengineering Villa Aurora‘, which depicts the strangeness of LA, edged between the expanses of the Pacific ocean and the Mojave desert.
As an extension of this documentation, we asked Warwick to write us a ‘Letter from America’—to tell us about his experiences there that have come to influence his work.
In this video, which is part anecdote, part observation, Warwick takes us on a tour of a place where the sun shines almost relentlessly and the days blur together. In this hazy perfection, a sense of dread — extensively portrayed in writing by inhabitants such as Octavia Butler and in film by characters like Edwards Scissorhands — is never far away.
This video is part 7 in the series produced in collaboration with Video in Common exploring art and artists from cities around the networked world — published at the start of every second week from March to December, 2015.
Watch the video embedded above and see here for Part Two.
This project has been made possible through the generous support of Arts Council England.
