Grounding

When lightning strikes water the electric golden desire lines unfurl themselves downward and horizontally in an expanding half-sphere, carried along by the water’s conductivity. We, too, are conductive bodies of water; leaky, permeable and ever-moving. Like us, water is a skilled wayfinder, trickling through imperceptible cracks, heaving soil and generating fractured concrete drawings like these of the Wash House. I contemplate how we can make kin through these desire lines, through touching and being ‘in’ touch. After all, just as bodies need water, water needs a body to be held.* Grounding was a site specific work developed for the Wash House at Sauerbier House, as part of the exhibition Desire Lines curated by Sarah Northcott. The cracks in the concrete would have been made over many years due to saturated earth heaving the building foundations. I intended to draw attention to these cracks and their watery origins, and explore conductivity as a life force as a way of questioning what we have in common with other more-than-human beings. I imported sound recordings of interactions between myself and other bodies of water onto a microcontroller touchboard. These soundscapes were triggered by the (conductive) touch of participants at various points along the copper, as well as the moisture in the concrete. *See Astrida Neimanis, 'Bodies of Water' (2017).