Ether Rocks
Ether Rocks
Discarded electronics, crystalized borax
2021-2023
In this series of speculative geology, discarded electronics are
crystallized with borax, an evaporite mined from ancient lake bed
deserts of Nevada and California. Deconstructed i-phones, bluetooth
speakers, routers with their metal, wires, glass, reveal the thingness
of these objects once connected to the internet and tossed away once
they had “died”. This urge to understand through direct touch, to see
inside, to smell the odor of digital-innards led me to tear, chip,
split, smash and then, to crystallize. I invite imagination to enter the
work: discarded electronics become crystallized into speculative
geologic forms, perhaps artifacts of a future of continuous extraction
and production of the physical objects of our digital world. Research
into the origin of Borax, this crystallizing material, led me to the
deserts of southern California and Nevada, where ancient sea beds have
been mined for this salt since gold rush times to extract gold from the
Sierra Nevadas without the poisonous effects of mercury. In addition to
its myriad household and industrial uses today, borate compounds are
used to strengthen cellphone, computer and television LCD screens, solar
panels and are embedded within the fiber optic cables that carry our
images underground. It is this depth of time and history lodged within
the materials themselves, and the geography in the things that captures
my imagination. These qualities call me to inquire more deeply into the
matter that surrounds us, and the extraction of earth that continues
into the digital age.