Interview with Dakota Gearhart

Tom Winchester: You mention in a speech that much of our technology has developed as a result of military investments, and that you wonder what would be the result of our government investing in empathy. To me, your artworks are the guns that shoot flowers. 

Dakota Gearhart: <---Aw that is a wonderful insight. I especially appreciate the reference to American protest culture from the 60's and 70's. I do wonder what would happen if more of the military's tech investments in perpetuating violence became more well-known -- like gaming, VR, and neural implants -- for both political reasons and zeitgeist reasons.

Advancements in technology bizarrely mean so much to the public, like a common wonder we can awe in, sort of like looking at animals or sunsets, something that reminds us less of our polarized differences, perhaps? I do believe we will eventually find a way to preserve the internet and all of our imagery and information there. Societies will probably crumble in this pursuit, which seems like something we as a species are (sometimes) willing to risk.

Alas, the collective death drive appears. It is here where I wonder about choices to invest in empathy tools....or to take it even further, do we even have a choice?

TW: Tiffany is a toxic algae bloom. Was she caused by red tide? 

DG: Yes, growing up in Florida and seeing the amount of chemicals and fertilizers that create red tide and algae in every adjacent gutter, pond, creek, bay, and ocean has just been mindblowing. I actually had to make this work as a way to deal with the frustration of that observation.

In Florida, there is something so suburban 1950's about wanting a perfect lawn, but now we actually know the cost of that desire, billions of lifeforms, pay with their lives. Like forget plankton, the ocean's greatest food source, even loveable Manatees die. People are even sick. Yet, these products and desires are still alive and well.

Of course, I was especially triggered by the Piney Point leak...watching the media cite seasonal red tide as a new occurrence and ushering away blame from Piny Point and any specific humans. There is something about beach culture that fogs the brain. Have people forgotten? Do they know they are swimming in chemicals that will alter their genes? I don't think they care? Isn't that fascinating?

To me, it is. So yes, Tiffany is a half-woman-half-toxic-algae-bloom.

TW: The rat’s circumstance reminds me of how the pandemic created a situation where we were all made to be Laika: cast in to space, alone, for the betterment of humanity and science, and death is minimized as much as possible. Is the rat a representation of each one of us? 

DG: Wow, thanks for referencing Laika and my work in the same sentence. What a gorgeous interpretation you have offered. Let's run with that.

TW: Your aesthetic is a mix of high and low tech, which reflects our current paradoxical, unequal world where mega-wealthy countries have quantum computers and stifled States don’t even have potable water. How do you shape your style? 

DG: Yes, to all that. My style comes from my interest in non-hierarchical forms of organization. I am also deeply interested in subverting the seduction of high tech with emotive low tech aesthetics. However, I don't reject the prowess of special effects, high resolution image making, and ultimately, illusion. For me, reality is a shape-shifting object, so in my art, I choose to reflect that quality with the tools we have to record it.