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A video installation piece that projects a 20-minute looping video onto the surface of a suspended auto windshield. The video background shows the slow motion passage of highway from the windshield of a moving car. The video foreground shows the gradual erasure of glacial contour lines. The context of this piece is the global changing of physical contours as a result of climate change. Glaciers are disappearing at an alarming rate, and as recently as July 30, 2008, yet another huge chunk of ice (20 sq km) broke off from the Ward Hunt ice shelf of Ellesmere Island. Whether it is the contours of a melting glacier, or the coastal contours of the continents and islands, there is no doubt that these contours are changing. Contours in the Crosshairs is a quiet and poetic piece that has subtle impact. The view of the road is almost nostalgic, the passage of time is extended, and the disappearance of the contour lines is subtle. At any particular moment, viewers are unlikely to immediately notice what is happening to the lines, but after a minute or two, the relentless erasure becomes apparent. The projection of Contours in the Crosshairs onto a cracked and discarded windshield does two things: viewing from the inside (concave side) the audience becomes an ‘accomplice’ in the position of driver, viewing from the outside (convex side) the viewer becomes a sort of ‘victim’ – like a deer caught in the headlights of the projector - unable to see or move - about to be struck. The cracked frosted glass hangs like ice, impotent to influence its future. Each time the glass is moved and installed, more cracks appear, the glass slowly fractures like so much polar ice.
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