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Thesis Info

LABS ID
00820
Thesis Title
A Crystalline Quilt for the Thick Present
Author
Ann Altstatt
2nd Author
3rd Author
Degree
Master of Fine Arts
Year
2018
Number of Pages
65
University
University of California, Santa Cruz
Thesis Supervisor
Jennifer A. Gonzalez
Supervisor e-mail
jag AT ucsc.edu
Other Supervisor(s)
Laurie Palmer, Yolande Harris
Language(s) of Thesis
English
Department / Discipline
Digital Arts and New Media
Copyright Ownership
Languages Familiar to Author
English
URL where full thesis can be found
escholarship.org/uc/item/272364v4
Keywords
time, quilt, trash, crystal, geology, landfill
Abstract: 200-500 words
A Crystalline Quilt for the Thick Present (CQTP) is a larger-than-body scale sculptural installation centered on an assemblage of materials salvaged from the Dimeo Lane landfill in Santa Cruz. CQTP is composed of a multi-level tessellated geometric array of repeating triangular forms arranged on the gallery floor, mirrored by large, chaotic assemblage of tangled linear elements suspended overhead. Through the formal metaphors of the tangle, the crystal lattice and a textile quilt, this work uses the landfill site as a case-study in the layered, entangled, superimposed nature of time, and proposes the ordering and reordering of matter as a record of these complex temporalities. CQTP challenges the viewer to join and be implicated in this investigation of the material histories of trash, and more broadly to consider the implications of waste and consumption, humans in relationship to the more-than-human world, and creative re-thinkings of our changing futures in the Anthropocene.