Séance for Dead Horse Bay

Séance for Dead Horse Bay (2022) is the result of an unbridled mashup of impulses, affinities, and collaborations. First, it is a tribute to the non-human ghosts living across New York City’s industrial waterways and specifically references the history of Brooklyn’s Dead Horse Bay. Through the 19th century and into the early 20th, the bay was a dumping ground for bodies from neighboring horse rendering plants that manufactured glue and fertilizer. Second, the animation is a tribute to Muybridge’s Animal Locomotion studies from the 1880s and the development of cinema out of the love of horses, money, and the science of vision in relation to the American imaginary of limitless resources. Third, it showers love on Shirley Clarke’s Bridges-Go-Round. Fourth, it is a product of Albena Baeva’s Solidarity Machine, an AI instruction device that builds on Fluxus scores that question received notions of belonging, order, and hierarchy. Finally, Séance for Dead Horse Bay is a collaboration with composer Andrea Williams, whose score invites all the witches.