asunder
ami / 2021'into a position apart, separate, into separate parts,' mid-12c., contraction of old english on sundran (see a- & sunder). middle english for 'distinguish, tell apart.'
'a-' commonly represents 'on, in, into,' as in alive, above, asleep, aback, abroad, afoot, ashore, ahead, abed, aside. intensive 'a-,' originally 'ar-' (cognate with german er- and probably implying originally 'motion away from'), as in abide, arise, awake, ashamed, marking a verb as momentary, a single event. in romanic languages, 'a-' often represents reduced forms of latin 'ad-' 'to, toward; for,' or 'ab-' 'from, away, off.'sundrian, syndrian, or, 'to sunder, separate, divide,' from sundor 'separately, apart,' from proto-germanic sunder (source also of old norse sundr, old frisian sunder, old high german suntar 'aside, apart;' german sondern 'to separate'), from PIE root sen(e)- 'apart, separated' (source also of sanskrit sanutar 'away, aside,' avestan hanare 'without,' greek ater 'without,' latin sine 'without,' old church slavonic svene 'without,' old irish sain 'different').
'the beauty of the world, which is so soon to perish, has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting the heart asunder.'
-virginia woolf
still life
ami / 2020you left in october. we've been walking ever since.
caught between brief awakenings, one step after another.
the wind picked up here / here / here / / / /
our blinding
ami / 2019these are the dreams of the spar spectra.
varying self, study of figure in a landscape.
constructed with the birefringence of iceland spar
and ways of being in a traumatic climatic form.
inspired by a sign on rib mountain describing 'ancient ripple marks' made from the sands of the precambrian sea. on the sign, sections including time spans of
"around the edges of his form, a strange magenta and green aura had begun to flicker, as if from a source somewhere behind him, growing more intense as he himself faded from view, until seconds later nothing was left but a kind of stain in the air where he had been, a warping of the light as through ancient window-glass."
- thomas pynchon, against the day
in case things go poorly
ami / 2018reel/reeled/reeling/reels (rēl)
-to cause to stagger or recoil.-to waver; to recoil or draw away from.
-of material things: to shake, rock, or swing violently; to totter, tremble.
-of an object or image: to have, or seem to have, a rapid quivering motion; to shimmer.
-of a person, group, etc.: to be emotionally or psychologically shaken by an event, experience, etc.; to feel disorientated, bewildered, overwhelmed, or intoxicated as a result of an occurrence, a powerful emotion, carrying a heavy weight, etc.
"yet still i gasp'd and reel'd with dread.
and ever, when the dream of night
renews the phantom to my sight,
cold sweat-drops gather on my limbs."
- s.t. coleridge, ode on the departing year, vi. / 1796
light of its history
ami / 2017an archive of stone memory. mapping time with geological media. fumbling to reach through time to the things themselves.
constructed using boulder stereograms, martian landscapes, mutable pixels, and glacial erratics. subtitles from the story of an african farm (1883) by olive schreiner:
“and at night when the twilight settled down, there looked out at him from the holes and crevices in the rocks stange faces...
‘if I should stop but for one moment, you would creep down upon me,’ he replied. and they put out their long necks farther.
‘look down in the crevice at your feet,’ they said. "see what lie there, - white bones! as brave and strong a man as you climbed to these rocks. and he looked up. he saw there was no use in striving; he would never hold Truth, never see her, never find her."
- olive schreiner, the story of an african farm / 1883
