Statement of Intent

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Storm Tossed Ship (Gonna Make It To The Ocean)


Storm Tossed Ship (Gonna Make It To The Ocean) is a video 
artwork which couples an original guitar-and-voice song 
with a brief, looped video clip of a stream of urine 
pushing an expended cigarette butt, which floats in a 
white porcelain toilet bowl. The song, which is sung in 
a puppet-like voice that is barely discernible itself, 
features the singer describing himself as a storm tossed 
ship, a giant squid, a captive whale and a rusted pail, all 
of which are going to “make it to the ocean.” The back 
and forth movement of the cigarette, slight up-and-down 
rock of the camera, and constant gurgle of splashing water 
reinforce the simple rock-and-roll structure of the guitar 
 strumming.

By featuring a familiar but not specifically discernible 
public bathroom location and a slightly nonsensical but 
tangentially relevant song, the work constructs an implied 
narrative that the viewer must complete for his or herself—
an act which engages the viewer’s imagination. By infecting 
the viewer’s imagination with a catchy song, the work can 
reemerge in viewer’s consciousness when prompted by specific
related events, such as urinating, finding a cigarette butt 
or thinking about the ocean. This process of dormancy and 
re-emergence is echoed in the subjects of the piece (ship, 
squid, whale, pail, and cigarette butt). Finally, the work 
can self-replicate via the singing and humming of infected
viewers and be transmitted to others.