What Remains – October 15, 2023

Unheard-of presents Rome Prize winner Christopher Stark’s Fire Ecologies. Fire Ecologies is a climate manifest that explores human impact on America’s ecosystems. The work takes audience members through seven scenes that range from “alien” landscapes to scenes with footage from the Gowanus itself. The first and last scenes, titled Terra Incognita, show earth becoming an alien planet, distant from nature. Scene two brings to life field recordings of water that is digitized, fragmented, and obliterated until fountains of harmony spill forth and glisten. Scene three is a meditation on the eternal resilience of Mother Nature. Scene four evokes a prophetic and burning firebird through an energetic dance as a harbinger of catastrophic climate destruction. Marche funèbre uses a field recording of a high-voltage power line in the Sierra Nevada is slowed down, revealing electric cycles in march-like rhythm; the rhythm of human progress and destruction.