Thanks and Goodbye, Coal.

Detail from "Switch"

From 4-6 pm, Saturday, May 14th, in the final hours of the Fierce Lament Exhibit at Form+Content Gallery, you are invited to participate (on video or off) in a farewell to energy sources of the last century using "Switch," a ritual artwork by artist, Jonee Kulman Brigham. Join with others in flipping the switches on electricity generated by coal, nuclear, natural gas, oil, and trash incineration.

What appreciation do you want to express - for childhood toast in the morning? Or to the coal workers who made that possible? What would you like to say to bring closure to your relationship with these power sources of the past, even if this will be a long - maybe decades long - goodbye?

The Switch: Commodity and Communion

9:43 am, April 14th, 2016: I just switched the source of the electricity we buy to 100% wind, thereby (as I understand it) causing a small shift in how Xcel generates power equal to the size of our household electric consumption. Previously, by default, our household’s electricity came from power plants representing Xcel’s overall mix of generated and purchased electricity: 46.1% Coal, 24.1% Natural Gas, 12.2% Nuclear, 12.2% Wind, 3.5% Hydro, 1.3% Biomass, 0.4% Solar, and 0.2% Other (2013 numbers). According to Xcel and third party Green-e certification, choosing “Windsource” will result in wind energy from Minnesota wind farms being added to the grid over and above the level of renewables that Xcel is mandated to provide. This shift will also result in eliminating my household’s part of the carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, and mercury emissions from the standard electric fuel mix.

When I flip a switch in our house I often imagine I am turning a power plant on or off. I pretend that lifting or lowering the white plastic lever stops and starts the pollutants coming out of a chimney at some remote industrial site. Of course our home’s electric use is a small part of the total demand, and I can’t literally turn off the pollution like that. But I also know in a way it is real—all those power plants exist in response to all the switches and outlets we control and the energy needed to treat the water we use, and to make the products we buy. I try to conserve energy, but we all use it, and I was looking for a way to make the energy I used more “green.”

The transaction was easy—as convenient as buying any product online. A few clicks and I have stepped a little further away from my relationship with electricity that is powered by nuclear, gas, coal, oil, and trash incineration. Switching is a simple and affordable financial transaction. I could have checked it off my “be greener” list and let it slip by as invisibly as the effects of turning off a light. But this transaction means more to me than that. It means there is a new story behind the wall when I turn on the lights—one that I feel better about. I like to feel connected to the world, to understand the flow between my life and all the man-made and natural systems around me. But feeling this connection through electricity was depressing for me before the switch. Now, once it takes effect, I can better accept my participation in the electric system, imagining that when I flip the switch, somewhere a wind turbine is being constructed and operated in my state, helping a farmer make more profitable use of their land.

Of course, there are challenges to wind energy too. There’s no perfect panacea. I know reducing my electric use is still the best path. But switching to wind is a meaningful step. The meaning of this step is made richer for me by creation of the artwork called “Switch” which was conceived before I decided to switch to wind. The artwork was a “power contemplation” which in part is about me wanting to feel more connected to the world – including looking at the difficult side of those connections. The artwork is an attempt at communion with the electric landscape. So, why don’t the switches “do anything” in the artwork? Why are the wires clipped, expressing disconnection? There is not one answer, or perhaps any. Experientially, I like the challenge a powerless switch poses to the participant. It raises questions and prompts multiple possible narratives. Do our actions make a difference? Is it too late? Is the switch more internal and personal than external? Is it about saving energy at home? Or changing energy as a society? Or is it reflective of our collective disconnection between action and impact?

It took a long time for me to act. I am behind my greener friends who switched long ago. I have worked in energy analysis and intellectually knew this was a good step. I have thought about it for years. Perhaps my delay is due to the abstraction of energy sourcing, or because I place higher priority on energy conservation, or simply my inertia.

The Switch artwork was a ritual object for me, nudging me to decide to switch to wind, and helping me to honor that decision as more than an online purchase. But it also helped me connect with and appreciate the troubled past of my own electric use, which I’ll write about in other posts.

Installed Switch

Sunday afternoon, I headed over to Form + Content Gallery to install Switch with Camille (curator of the Fierce Lament exhibit) and Rosie (exhibit designer/installer). The gallery is intimate and has the feeling of a precious container - like a side chapel in a church complex. The gallery was alive with almost all the artists installing work at once. Installation of Switch went smoothly, with only a few extra holes in the wall behind it. I am always amazed at how placement in a gallery or an intended space completes a piece - like its final outer frame. And how the lighting creates new shadow layers to the work.

Switch reflects a struggle with the effects of power consumption and questions about personal power to make change. As part of Switch, I went on “pilgrimages” upstream from my electric meter to photograph five power plants that represent five types of electric generation I hope will be substantially replaced by renewables: nuclear, coal, gas, oil, and trash incineration. Switch is a ritual object, representing appreciation of the gifts of electricity from these plants, sadness at their/my impacts, and a decision upon opening of the exhibit to switch to wind power. Visitors may carefully operate the switches to experience the work.

Power Basket Progress

I've been using coil form basketry techniques to create "Power Basket" out of reclaimed electric wire and switches and outlets. I love the material, but it is stiff and hard to weave and my fingers are tired. The basket is incredibly heavy already, and I'm only part way done. I like the repetitive motion of basket weaving - the process is therapeutic in itself, whatever the outcome it takes in its final form.

I think about its meaning in an open ended way. What would a power basket hold, really? Electric memories? Is it the material or the space - like they say about pottery - in which its value lay? How will it feel to flip the switch (woven into the basket walls) and see no reaction - no change in light?

Here's a sketch of it's planned finished form, and other photos of the progress to date.

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Material Channels

The wire and conduit that was removed during our remodel is more than material waste. The conduit and even the wire, was a channel, a physical or conceptual space through which our enacted power decisions flowed - from the light switch or power outlet through these wires within the conduit to the circuit panel to the electric meter to the power lines, substation, transmission lines - out many directions to the network of power plants beyond. And from those power plants, to the sky through the chimneys that release combustion pollutants that can't be captured.











Another way they are more than material waste is as sculpture. Just the heaps of them, un-self-conciously stacked by the electrician are wonderful crazy sculptures of copper wrapped in colored vinyl or galvanized metal spirals.

 

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Welcome

Welcome to this blog about a body of work in progress called Power Contemplations.

Begun April 2015, Power Contemplations is a series of artworks and writings inspired by my ongoing interest in exploring infrastructure as a hidden/shadow architecture of interconnection. I believe infrastructure, such as power lines and water mains, tells a story of how our daily lives are interconnected with nature—whether from a sink through pipes to the river, or from a light switch, through wires, to the sky. The artwork for Power Contemplations began with the demolition of electrical components during our home remodel and my feeling that they held memories of electric uses and impacts from our own and prior owners’ lives. I decided to use this remodeling waste as art material to reflect on my relationship to electrical power. The writing for Power Contemplations includes past essays and exploration about electric power, and new writing.

I welcome your comments and reflections on your own relationship to the electric landscape.

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