5-6

Smut - 2004
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Single-channel time lapsed video with audio. 6 minutes, 50 seconds
Nine unique duratran prints in custom made light boxes 18.5" x 16.5" x 5.5" each
Video still

Research into the history of crime photography led me to the case of Xavier Carrara, an 19th century French mushroom farmer who murdered a loan collector, took his money, and then disposed of the body by incinerating it and sprinkling the remains over his mushroom crop. While many facts of this case piqued my interest, it was the lack of forensic evidence coupled with the semiotic associations of smut (spore and titillating reading) that helped form this work.

Smut, consists of nine duratrans of mushrooms and a time lapse video image of mushrooms growing. Inserted into the frame of the video is an image of a "human" mushroom, a woman who recounts the tale of a murder from the turn of the 19th century committed by a mushroom farmer in Paris. The images in Smut are shot in France and taken from a cave similar to the cave where the farmer burnt his victim's body.