Trackingshot (2017-)

Collaborative research project by artists Rebecca Birch, Leah Capaldi, George Charman and Adam Knight. Trackingshot investigates frontier spaces through art practice and cross-disciplinary research.

Trackingshot.1 Desert Sessions took place in the California Mojave Desert in April 2017. 

The project began with a one week research road trip, from Boulder Colorado to Joshua Tree, via the Earthships at Taos, Lucy Lippard’s home in Galisteo, the alternative community of Arcosanti, the architecture school Taliesin West, and many varied desert and mountain ecologies. During this week we used the space of the car, the road, and the encounters we had as a method for collaborative research and exchange.

The second part of the project was a three week residency at AZ West, California. During the final two weeks of the residency, we developed collaborative artworks that were broadcast daily from AZ West and the wider environs of Joshua Tree and the Mojave Desert. These broadcasts were made in collaboration with Field Broadcast, and arrived directly the laptops, tablets and phones of subscribed viewers, as a live-streamed video interruption.

All broadcasts are now archived online at Trackingshot.net and are freely available to stream.  Three specially commissioned essays, produced in response to the broadcast, by Jonathan Griffin, Ellen Mara De Wachter and Chris Fite-Wassilak, are also archived there.

On return from the desert, the broadcasts were screened over a 24-hour period on the big screen at Focal Point Gallery, Southend, and a publication including the essays was produced, see publication here.