Archaeology of the Present presents selected findings by artists Rebecca Bruno, Nova Jiang and Debra Scacco created during AIR, a six-month residency at Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI). AIR provided access to a state-of-the-art prototyping facility and leading minds working in climate-related issues. Through varying approaches, each artist engaged with a deep study of humans in relation to their surrounding environments, highlighting agricultural regeneration, urban erasure, and city infrastructure.
By introducing artists to an entrepreneurial clean tech hub, LACI’s AIR program brings new insights, research models and personal entry points to our most urgent ecological issues: the air we breathe, the water we drink, the systems by which we live. AIR resident artists are encouraged to remain a part of the LACI community, benefiting artists and incubator alike. This inaugural exhibition offers a snapshot of the way we work, together.
Rebecca Bruno explored the link between agricultural systems and the choreographic process used in dance and performance art. Her piece, Life Keeping Recipe for a Relic, combines data collected through a series of public movement workshops with studies on permaculture and the impact that land cultivation has on the regenerative properties of soil. The resulting actions contain both hopeful, and dismal, aspects of climate change.
Nova Jiang focused on the relational cycles of urban blight and redevelopment, specifically as they affect neighborhood accessibility and diversity. Her installation, Bunker, commemorates the Los Angeles neighborhood of Bunker Hill—an enclave of opulent Victorian mansions that fell into disrepair, and was eventually razed to make way for the promise of commercial high rises and cultural institutions. Housed in a wheel-shaped sandbox, Jiang’s 3D-printed sand molds modeled after original Bunker Hill mansions allow viewers to rebuild the lost neighborhood. Each time the wheel is spun, the neighborhood is wiped clean.
Debra Scacco initiated the first phase of her longterm project, titled Future Tense. This installation uses Los Angeles as a case study to investigate the relationship between city geographies, historic river courses, existing highway configurations, and a midcentury transit proposal never realized. The work questions our certainty of the history on which we build, the way we currently move, and the potential of an interconnected future.
ABOUT AIR
AIR, the Artist-in-Residence Program at Los Angeles Cl
eantech Incubator (LACI), empowers innovation by uniting the creative and cleantech communities in the shared aim of addressing global environmental problems.
Situated in the heart of Los Angeles’ Arts District, AIR enhances LACI’s innovation community by introducing research-led artists to a thriving environment: where entrepreneurs, engineers, organizations and policy makers collaborate, promote and support the development of clean technologies.
The benefits of the six-month residency include:
— $13,000 stipend
— Access to leading minds
— Training and access to prototyping equipment
— Community engagement at the interplay of technology, sustainability, and the arts
ABOUT LACI
The Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI) is a private non-profit organization creating an inclusive green economy by unlocking innovation (working with startups to accelerate the commercialization of clean technologies), transforming markets (through partnerships in transportation, energy and sustainable cities) and enhancing communities (through workforce development, pilots and other programs). Founded as an economic development initiative by the City of Los Angeles and its Department of Water & Power (LADWP), LACI is recognized as one of the most innovative business incubators in the world by UBI. In the past six years, LACI has helped 73 portfolio companies raise $184M in funding, $220M in revenue, create 1,700 jobs, and deliver more than $379M in long term economic value. Learn more at laci.org
