Ordinal (SW/NE)
2017 - Film & Video (Film & Video)
43:05 minutes
Miljohn Ruperto
Miljohn Ruperto’s research-based multidisciplinary practice often deals with possession, re-enactment, mythology and archives. These conceptual throughlines also underpin Ruperto and Minnesota-based director Rini Yun Keagy’s eerie experimental documentary Ordinal (SW/NE) , which collapses mythology, scientific research, Californian agricultural history, American literature, and speculative fiction into a poetic and timely examination of possession, infection, and individual agency in an age of wanton industrial agriculture and alienation. Ordinal (SW/NE) tells the tale of a young Black man named Josiah as he navigates the banalities of daily life while potentially being possessed by a malignant supernatural force or stricken by valley fever, a little-known yet gruesome and sometimes lethal real-life respiratory illness which disproportionately affects farm and field workers, particularly Filipinos and African-Americans. Scenes from Josiah’s movements through institutional and domestic spaces are interwoven with drone footage of vast golden fields, archival photography of California dust storms so enormous that they appear biblical, and black-and-white footage of a scene from John Steinbeck’s canonical novel The Grapes of Wrath , which follows the desolate journey of impoverished American migrants during the Great Depression. Ordinal (SW/NE) is a prismatic work, an expansive Pandora’s Box of storylines moving between the past, present, and mythological time. Yet it remains grounded in regional specificity, as it traces the spiritual effects and cultural-environmental influences of valley fever and the pathogenic fungus coccidioides immitis that causes it. While endemic to the Southwestern United States, valley fever is particularly common in the Central Valley of California, which is the agricultural engine of California as well as a repository for much of the state’s air pollution. The region represents both the insistence of desert irrigation as well as the threat of man-made drought and respiratory sickness, both the miracle of technology and the revenge of the gods.
Miljohn Ruperto is a cross-disciplinary artist working across photography, cinema, performance, and digital animation. His work refers to historical and anecdotal occurrences, and speculates on the nature of assumed facts and the construction of truth. Often involving replicas, modified versions, and enactments—including Chinese-made reproductions of Caspar David Friedrich’s The Monk by the Sea ; modified images based on the 15th century Voynich Manuscript; or reworked footage of Filipino actress Isabel Rosario Cooper—Ruperto takes cultural and historical references and untethers them from their original context to challenge our perception and generate something altogether new. Ruperto’s work is often informed by his collaborations with experts from other disciplines including Dutch animator Aimée de Jongh, neuroscientist and engineer Rajan Bhattacharyya, photographer Ulrik Heltoft among others. Through a richness and diversity of lenses, and preferencing the obscure, mysterious and the magical, his work challenges fixed conceptions of truth and history, and instead speaks of an indeterminacy and subjectivity of experience that renders truth and fiction near indistinguishable.
Colors:
Related works featuring themes of: » Black-and-White Photography, » Contemporary Fact Versus Fiction, » Dark, » Flora, » Filipino and Danish
» see more
© » KADIST
Natasha Wheat
2011Natasha Wheat’s Kerosene Triptych (2011) is composed of three images, one each from the digital files of the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Field Museum tropical research archive...
© » ART & OBJECT
Ed Ruscha
Ed Ruscha's Poetry of the American Experience | Art & Object Skip to main content Subscribe to our free e-letter! Webform Your Email Address Role Art Collector/Enthusiast Artist Art World Professional Academic Country USA Afghanistan Albania Algeria American Samoa Andorra Angola Anguilla Antarctica Antigua & Barbuda Argentina Armenia Aruba Ascension Island Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia & Herzegovina Botswana Bouvet Island Brazil British Indian Ocean Territory British Virgin Islands Brunei Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Canary Islands Cape Verde Caribbean Netherlands Cayman Islands Central African Republic Ceuta & Melilla Chad Chile China Christmas Island Clipperton Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia Comoros Congo - Brazzaville Congo - Kinshasa Cook Islands Costa Rica Croatia Cuba Curaçao Cyprus Czechia Côte d’Ivoire Denmark Diego Garcia Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Eswatini Ethiopia Falkland Islands Faroe Islands Fiji Finland France French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Gibraltar Greece Greenland Grenada Guadeloupe Guam Guatemala Guernsey Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti Heard & McDonald Islands Honduras Hong Kong SAR China Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Isle of Man Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jersey Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Kosovo Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Laos Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macao SAR China Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania Mauritius Mayotte Mexico Micronesia Moldova Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Montserrat Morocco Mozambique Myanmar (Burma) Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands Netherlands Antilles New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Niue Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands North Korea North Macedonia Norway Oman Outlying Oceania Pakistan Palau Palestinian Territories Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Pitcairn Islands Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Qatar Romania Russia Rwanda Réunion Samoa San Marino Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Sint Maarten Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Georgia & South Sandwich Islands South Korea South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka St...
Other related works, blended automatically
» see more
© » KADIST
Miljohn Ruperto
2013Miljohn Ruperto’s high-definition video Janus takes its name from the two-faced Roman god of duality and transitions, of beginnings and endings, gates and doorways...
© » KADIST
Natasha Wheat
2011Natasha Wheat’s Kerosene Triptych (2011) is composed of three images, one each from the digital files of the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Field Museum tropical research archive...
© » KADIST
Agnieszka Kurant
2022For Sentimentite Agnieszka Kurant collaborated with Justin Lane, CEO and Co-Founder of CulturePulse, to gather global sentiment data that has been harvested from millions of Twitter and Reddit posts related to 100 seismic events in recent history...
Related works sharing similar palette
» see more
© » SLASH PARIS
Peter Doig — Reflets du siècle — Musée d’Orsay — Exhibition — Slash Paris Login Newsletter Twitter Facebook Peter Doig — Reflets du siècle — Musée d’Orsay — Exhibition — Slash Paris English Français Home Events Artists Venues Magazine Videos Back Peter Doig — Reflets du siècle Exhibition Painting Peter Doig,Two Trees, 2017 (Détail) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York © Peter Doig...
Related works from the » 2010's created around » Los Angeles, California
» see more
© » KADIST
Will Rogan
2010MUM , the acronym used to title a series of Rogan’s small interventions on found magazines, stands for “Magic Unity Might,” the name of a vintage trade magic publication...
© » KADIST
Phillip Maisel
2015While his works can function as abstract, they are very much rooted in physicality and the possibilities that are inherent in the materials themselves...
© » KADIST
Clarissa Tossin
2017Clarissa Tossin’s film Ch’u Mayaa responds to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House (constructed 1919–21) in Los Angeles, an example of Mayan Revival architecture...
© » KADIST
Will Rogan
2014Will Rogan’s video Eraser (2014) shows a hearse parked in a clearing amidst leaf barren trees...
Other works by: » Miljohn Ruperto
» see more
© » KADIST
Miljohn Ruperto
2013Miljohn Ruperto’s high-definition video Janus takes its name from the two-faced Roman god of duality and transitions, of beginnings and endings, gates and doorways...
© » KADIST
Miljohn Ruperto
2009Miljohn Ruperto’s silent video work Appearance of Isabel Rosario Cooper is an archive of ghosts...
© » KADIST
Miljohn Ruperto
2009Acting Exercise: Demon Possession is a video by Miljohn Ruperto that addresses notions of performativity, the self, and collective truth...
Related works found in the same semantic group
» see more
© » LENS CULTURE
Rituals, Renewal, and Order from Chaos - Photographs by Elena Helfrecht | Interview by Sophie Wright | LensCulture Feature Rituals, Renewal, and Order from Chaos Bringing the myths of her native region of Bavaria into an enigmatic visual reality, Elena Helfrecht has built a photographic ritual she enacts every year around winter solstice...
© » NYTIMES LENS
Gazing Into the Past and Future at Historic Observatories - The New York Times Travel | Gazing Into the Past and Future at Historic Observatories https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/07/travel/historic-observatories.html Share full article 58 An archival photograph of the moon, taken at Lick Observatory, near San Jose, Calif...