Excerpt of Codex Rundle (2024) – Looping 8K video triptych; running time: 03:30 per loop
CODEX RUNDLE is an ecological portrait of Mount Rundle in the Canadian Rockies. It is a video art project that takes inspiration from an ancient type of manuscript known as a codex. In particular, it references codices that catalogue the natural world in encyclopedic detail.
Mount Rundle is bordered by the towns of Banff and Canmore in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. It is an island of wilderness surrounded by a sea of human activity and infrastructure.
CODEX RUNDLE is a tapestry woven from thousands of clips that I filmed over three years of the flora, fauna, and geology on the slopes, valleys, and ridges of Mount Rundle. The resulting art work is rooted in the tradition of historic landscape painting but presents the land as an interconnected system rather than a scenic vista.
The project is structured on a 24-hour cycle (one rotation of the Earth). I like to incorporate astronomical cycles in my projects as a way to connect the ground beneath our feet with the cosmos above our heads. Recognizing that we are on a planet spinning through infinite space helps us understand the finite nature of the place we live.