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Locust Projects presents Rhizomorph by Jessica Reisch and Tyson Houseman current MFA candidates from SVA (School of Visual Arts), NYC, whose proposal was selected from an Open Call to current MFA students nationally as part of Locust Projects commitment to supporting the next generation of artists each summer through LAB, LAB MFA, and its new Teaching Artist Summer Studio Residency. 

Applying as a co-artist duo that practices at the intersection of new media and bioart, Tyson Houseman is an Indigenous (Nehiyaw/Plains Cree) interdisciplinary video artist, puppeteer, and filmmaker, and Jessica Reisch is a creative technologist, motion designer, and educator.

While in residence at the Locust Projects’ house the artists will be building their site specific project that consists of cosmic, celestial imagery made using analog visual effects, including water refractions and microscope footage, imbuing Locust Projects’ Project Room with an ethereal and dreamlike atmosphere that communicates parallels between microscopic biology and macroscopic galactic formations.

The branching surfaces of the sculpture created during their residency will be constructed from lightweight papier-mache that is projection-mapped to visualize signaled mycorrhizal communication as a burst of light and energy traveling from one root tip to another.

The project reflects on the rhizomatic and interconnected nature of south Florida’s subsoil ecosystems through the use of field recordings using geophones that record land-based ecologies and hydrophones that record water-based ecologies, and including materials gathered from surrounding natural areas.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Tyson Houseman is an Indigenous (Nehiyaw/Plains Cree) interdisciplinary video artist, puppeteer, and filmmaker, and Jessica Reisch is a creative technologist, motion designer, and educator Tyson’s practice focuses on aspects of contemporary Indigeneity, and the intersections between live video performance and time-based media, while Jessica works in collaboration with biological rhythms and ecosystems, focusing primarily on fungal life. 

Their collaborative, research based art practice aims to recontextualize human-centric perspectives as embedded within a broader and more inclusive multispecies framework in response to a rapidly shifting global climate. Their work is guided by a sustainable and land-informed practice that draws from Houseman’s Indigenous Nehiyaw background and teachings, employing methodologies of reciprocation and exchange between humans and place-based ecologies and utilizing sustainable artmaking and technology practices.