toward sublimity

(by Bill Thompson)

“For those personages, presenting themselves to us and inflaming our ardour and as it were illumining our path, will carry our minds in a mysterious way to the high standards of sublimity which are imaged within us.” Longinus, On the Sublime (tr. W. Rhys Roberts)

this work is a multiple speaker audio/visual installation that explores the sounds and images of an offshore oil rig. since moving to aberdeen and living off of the north sea, i have been fascinated by these structures. the sounds and images experienced by the men and women who spend so much of their time on these rigs are indeed some of the most beautiful, intense, and unique in the world. this first piece, in a proposed series of installations, explores an abstracted reflection of these sounds drawn from a small video clip provided by jake molloy (thank you, jake).