ENDANGERED DATA
"Environmentalism is enabled by the collection of data on carbon dioxide. When anti-environmentalist regimes come to power, they often commission studies to deny the science of global warming. They also make valuable datasets vulnerable to suppression or even erasure. Environmentalist data is as vulnerable as environments.In December 2016, as the U.S. presidency prepared to transfer to Trump, scientists and librarians across Canada and the United States participated in the Guerrilla Archiving Event: Saving Environmental Data from Trump. By January 2017, the Trump administration has scrubbed the term climate change—itself a euphemism coined by rightwing pollster Frank Luntz to make global warming sound less severe, thus garner support of “energy independence”—from the website of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Zachary Norman’s Endangered Data uses the cryptographic method known as steganography to store data from the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC) within the pixels of visual images. The images can be shared, thus surreptitiously sharing encrypted data across communication systems that might be surveilled. The addition of data is itself visualized in a change in an image’s colors, which can be controlled by the user.
In this project, the color changes signify a dis-colorization of environments. Soft white clouds in blue skies transform into dayglo-colored explosions. Mountains covered in greenery suddenly seem to sprout toxic molds. Waves that once reflected only light now glisten with neon-colored films that convey toxicity. CDIAC datasets document carbon cycles in the atmosphere, oceans, and land. They enumerate trace gases and aerosols, CO2 emissions, and vegetation responses to CO2 and climate. It represents the science the global warming-denial attempts to discredit, delegitimize, and disappear."
Dale Hudson
Curator of Film and New Media
NYU, Abu Duhabi
Ragged Point, Barbados
Single Channel Video
Measurement data from Ragged Point, Barbados (13.17°N, 59.43°W) measurement station encrypted into image of location. Increase in pixels used to store data proportionate to increase of Methane (CH4) in atmosphere between 1996 and 2016. Data can be viewed here.
Trinidad Head, California
Single Channel Video
Measurement data from Trinidad Head, California (41.05°N, 124.15°W) measurement station encrypted into image of location. Increase in pixels used to store data proportionate to increase of Methane (CH4) in atmosphere between 1995 and 2016. Data can be viewed here.
Mace Head, Ireland
Single Channel Video
Measurement data from Mace Head, Ireland (53.33°N, 9.9°W) measurement station encrypted into image of location. Increase in pixels used to store data proportionate to increase of Methane (CH4) in atmosphere between 1994 and 2016. Data can be viewed here.
Cape Matatula, Samoa
Single Channel Video
Measurement data from Cape Matatula, Samoa (14.23°S, 170.56°W) measurement station encrypted into image of location. Increase in pixels used to store data proportionate to increase of Methane (CH4) in atmosphere between 1996 and 2016. Data can be viewed here.
Cape Grim, Tasmania
Single Channel Video
Measurement data from Cape Grim, Tasmania (40.68°S, 144.69°E) measurement station encrypted into image of location. Increase in pixels used to store data proportionate to increase of Methane (CH4) in atmosphere between 1996 and 2016. Data can be viewed here.
EVERYTHING IS COLLECTIVE
Everything Is Collective (E.I.C.) is an ongoing collaboration between three artists: Jason Lukas, Zachary Norman, and Aaron Hegert. Since 2013 the group has worked together on numerous exhibitions, publications, and web-based projects, all of which address contemporary issues in photography and image making. Our practice is truly collaborative, and all the works we create are attributed to the group as a whole. Because of the special nature of this collaboration, our projects do not conform to the traditional structures that photographic work often fits into, nor can our concepts be easily explained by a simple thematic text. We treat our collaboration as a microcosm, a space where the most contentious and exciting subjects in contemporary photography, art, and culture at large can be stripped away from the Grand Narratives to which they have been assigned, and be explored in a more intentional, devious, and uncompromising way.
8.5" x 11" (215.9 x 279.4 mm)
Wire-o Bound
Digital Offset Printed
136 Pages
Edition of 300
2017
Included in the Joan Flasch Artists' Book Collection at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Topography (Cross Section)
16" x 20"
Archival Inkjet Print
2015
24" x 30"
Archival Pigment Print
2013
8.5" x 11" (215.9 x 279.4 mm)
Spiral Bound
Digital Offset Printed
166 Pages
Edition of 200
2015
Shortlisted for the Anamorphosis Prize
Included in the MOMA Artist Book Collection
Read a review of DO3 by Loring Knoblauch on Collector Daily here.
8.5" x 11" (215.9 x 279.4 mm)
Wire-o Bound
Digital Offset Printed
72 Pages
Edition of 50
2014
Out of print
Printed CMYK + Duotone
Mixed Paper Stock
Smyth Sewn, Perfect Bound, Foil Stamp
2014
24" x 30"
Archival Pigment Print
2013
Curated by Lodret Vandret
Nextart Gallery
Gothenburg, Sweden
2014
Curated by Lodret Vandret
Nextart Gallery
Gothenburg, Sweden
2014
Topography (Zone Contour Map)
24" x 48"
Laser Etched Mars Red Flourescent Acrylic, Stainless Steel Standoffs
2015
Shadows Don't Make Sense in the Zone
20' x 24"
Archival Inkjet Print
Unfinished Maple Frame
2015
Full Empty (Stratification)
20" x 24"
Archival Inkjet Print, Laser Cut Mars Red Flourescent Acrylic, Unfinished Maple Frame
2015
incandescence to ore, to Earth
"Zachary Norman’s computer-generated photographs explore the crags and cracks of the uncanny valley. His images present virtually conceived bodily forms and objects whose pristine surfaces belie their inherent fabricated nature. Norman’s composite figures and tableaus lead the viewer through unearthly narratives that explore the relationship between empathy, perception and visual ploy."Press Release
Ambient Occulsion
Present Company Gallery
Brooklyn, NY
Installation Shot
Present Company Gallery
Brooklyn, NY
Computer Generated Image
Dye Sublimation Print on Aluminum
8" x 10"
2015
Computer Generated Image
Dye Sublimation Print on Aluminum
8" x 10"
2015
Computer Generated Image
Dye Sublimation Print on Aluminum
40" x 50"
2015
Computer Generated Image
Dye Sublimation Print on Aluminum
40" x 30"
2015
Computer Generated Image
Dye Sublimation Print on Aluminum
40" x 30"
2015
Computer Generated Image
Dye Sublimation Print on Aluminum
24" x 30"
2015
Computer Generated Image
Dye Sublimation Print on Aluminum
40" x 50"
2015
Computer Generated Image
Dye Sublimation Print on Aluminum
16" x 20"
2015
Computer Generated Image
Dye Sublimation Print on Aluminum
40" x 50"
2015
Computer Generated Image
Dye Sublimation Print on Aluminum
40" x 50"
2015
Computer Generated Image
Dye Sublimation Print on Aluminum
40" x 50"
2015
Installation Shot
Present Company Gallery
Brooklyn, NY
Installation Shot
Present Company Gallery
Brooklyn, NY
EXOTIC MATTER
In physics, the term exotic matter is typically applied to matter whose existence is hypothetical or about which little is known. In this work, I have generated my own hypothetical matter; the exoticism of which is completely dependent upon its visual representation. The phenomena and matter represented in these images do not and have never physically existed. They can be seen but not touched.This exploration is a response to a world in which a network of machines and digital interfaces dictate human perception and behavior. Given these conditions, the contemporary image and the objects represented therein have become unbound from their physicality. They have become malleable and susceptible to multiple interpretations and intentions. Thus, images and objects can be rendered exotic, in that the matter from which they are composed can be manipulated and represented in ways that deviate from expectations of how they should behave. These images were generated through various photographic and non-photographic techniques to exploit the vulnerability of the image-object relationship; the tenuousness of which reflects the relationships between non-existence and existence; ideation and materialization; space and time.
Computer Generated Image
Archival Inkjet Print
20" x 24"
2014
Computer Generated Image
gi Archival Inkjet Print
36" x 45"
2014
Computer Generated Image
Archival Inkjet Print
20" x 24"
2014
Computer Generated Image
Archival Inkjet Print
20" x 24"
2014
Computer Generated Image
Archival Inkjet Print
20" x 24"
2014
Computer Generated Image
Archival Inkjet Print
20" x 24"
2014
Computer Generated Image
Archival Inkjet Print
30" x 24"
2014
Computer Generated Image
Archival Inkjet Print
16" x 20"
2014
Zachary Norman (b. 1985) is a multi-disciplinary artist and educator who lives and works in Salt Lake City, UT. He is a co-founder of the art collective EIC. In 2016, their publication, DELIBERATE OPERATIONS 3, was included in the Museum of Modern Art’s Artist Book Collection. Norman is the co-recipient of a New Frontiers Grant from Indiana University for his research on computational photography and was recently selected as a 2019 Artist-in-Residence at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art.
zacharydeannorman [at] gmail [dot] com
Upcoming:
Full Bleed Issue #3: Machines
2019 Marshall T. Meyer Research Travel Grant Recipient, Rubinstein Library, Duke University
Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival (Prize Awarded), Ithaca College
2019-2020 Artist-in-Residence, Utah Museum of Contemporary Art
Recent:
Reframing Incarceration, Notre Dame Center for Arts & Culture (Curator)
Fotografija: New Tools in Photography: from Google to the Algorithm. Edited by Paul Paper
Art and the Ecologies of Data. CAA 2019. (Presenter/Panelist)
SENTINELS (I): INFILTRATE Curated by Ian Breidenbach and Teréz Iacovino. Lump Projects, Raleigh, NC
Refract Journal, Vol. 1, Issue 1. University of California Santa Cruz
Digital America, Issue #12
Full CV available upon request.