> Sweet Crude Video
> Flow Rate Video
Sweet Crude | John Ensor Parker + Johnny Moreno
DUMBO Arts Festival, 81 Front Street, September 24-27 2010
Brooklyn, New York
Sweet Crude is a multi-channel video installation that visually interprets the quantity of flow from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill with light and movement. This is accomplished by creating a volume with projection screens. The center projection channel contains footage of the leaking well pipe. The other sides of the volume contain a projection of light that begins at the floor and moves upward filling the volume. The rate of which the volume fills is real time, calculated by the flow rate of the oil and capacity of the volume.
Flow Rate | John Ensor Parker
10-minute video loop of the Deepwater Horizon oil leak, 2010
Two Sanyo 12,000 lumens projection units
10-minute video loop of the Deepwater Horizon oil leak, 2010
Two Sanyo 12,000 lumens projection units
- DUMBO Arts Festival, Public Art Video Projection, Manhattan Bridge, Brooklyn, New York
- The Endless Bridge, Public Art Video Projection, Curated by Leo Kuelbs, Berlin, Germany
The Flow Rate Technical Group is a group of scientists and engineers from the United States federal government, universities, and research institutions created May 19, 2010 for an official scientific based estimate of the flow of oil in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. One of the tools provided for their analysis was high definition video of the oil/gas mixture escaping from the damaged well. With it they used particle image velocimetry analysis to estimate fluid velocity and flow volume.
Rep. Edward J. Markey, Chair of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming directed BP to provide footage from the site to congress, who would in turn, make it public. However, this footage was a low quality Internet feed and was the footage provided news outlets and seen throughout the world. The original high-resolution footage was provided only to the Flow Rate Technical Group and not previously available to the public.
Parker contacted members of the Flow Rate Technical Group requesting the high-resolution footage only to be denied. The scientists indicated they were not at liberty to release the footage in fear of retribution from BP. However, one member of the group made the decision to release the footage under terms that Parker maintains discretion and to not disclose the source. The scientist felt a responsibility make the documentation public and bring awareness to the severity of the situation.
Parker collaborated with New York based filmmaker Johnny Moreno to realize concepts of public art. Flow Rate and Sweet Crude explore the relationship between human beings and our understanding, as individuals and collectives, of the context in which we live. High definition footage of the recent Gulf oil leak is enlisted to re-sensitize viewers to these important issues.