WEBVTT

00:00:07.430 --> 00:00:12.323
[ELLEN GALLAGHER: "OSEDAX"]

00:00:15.450 --> 00:00:18.727
[MUSIC ECHOES THROUGH GALLERY]

00:00:25.668 --> 00:00:29.330
It seems like animation has always been implied in my work,

00:00:29.762 --> 00:00:32.363
and has always been moving towards that.

00:00:32.702 --> 00:00:34.868
[NEW MUSEUM, NEW YORK CITY]

00:00:39.131 --> 00:00:44.699
In the painting, the way that the form is abstracted is like early animation.

00:00:47.107 --> 00:00:49.822
I break them down into moving parts.

00:01:01.101 --> 00:01:02.927
[SOUND OF PROJECTOR MOTOR]

00:01:03.316 --> 00:01:05.462
["OSEDAX" (2010), EDGAR CLEIJNE & ELLEN GALLAGHER]

00:01:05.694 --> 00:01:10.890
Osedax is a bone-devouring worm that was recently discovered

00:01:10.890 --> 00:01:12.964
off of the coast of Monterey.

00:01:13.162 --> 00:01:17.487
What they thought they came upon was a cliff jutting out from an ocean canyon.

00:01:17.689 --> 00:01:21.533
They took off a chunk of it and brought it back into the lab.

00:01:23.731 --> 00:01:27.027
And they saw that it actually was a whale bone,

00:01:27.226 --> 00:01:29.918
and that there were all these plummy forms coming out of it.

00:01:29.918 --> 00:01:32.594
And as they looked at these plummy forms they saw they were a new worm

00:01:32.594 --> 00:01:35.320
that hadn't been categorized yet.

00:01:38.170 --> 00:01:42.794
I was really attracted to the way the scientists described finding the form.

00:01:42.931 --> 00:01:45.396
It was such a literary device.

00:01:46.364 --> 00:01:48.333
You think you're seeing one thing,

00:01:48.333 --> 00:01:51.133
and then it turns out to be something completely different.

00:01:53.458 --> 00:01:58.193
This idea of evolution--and evolutionary possibilities--

00:01:58.193 --> 00:02:01.288
quite often repeats in science fiction.

00:02:03.132 --> 00:02:06.894
For me, the protocols of science fiction

00:02:06.894 --> 00:02:09.935
and the protocols of science are not separate--

00:02:10.531 --> 00:02:12.374
they're woven together.

00:02:18.036 --> 00:02:23.298
Whale fall happens as whales descend through the depths of the ocean at their death.

00:02:23.659 --> 00:02:26.721
And it carries with it so much knowledge.

00:02:28.552 --> 00:02:30.922
So all those secret passages you hear about

00:02:30.922 --> 00:02:32.628
between the Atlantic and the Pacific...

00:02:32.628 --> 00:02:35.891
All of these routes then become lost.

00:02:37.481 --> 00:02:40.469
So I thought that the osedax worm

00:02:40.469 --> 00:02:44.680
inscribes these systems of travel into the bone.

00:02:46.637 --> 00:02:49.913
And it's a paper box inscribed on both sides

00:02:49.913 --> 00:02:52.806
to signify this kind of carving.

00:02:59.380 --> 00:03:04.881
Edgar Cleijne and I wanted to create these passageways in the film.

00:03:05.143 --> 00:03:09.480
For instance, we turned a blob of ink into a 3D model,

00:03:09.480 --> 00:03:12.912
and so this paper bird swims through this--literally--

00:03:12.912 --> 00:03:16.113
through what's a blob of ink is now a tunnel.

00:03:20.481 --> 00:03:24.712
Matter is not fixed and is always in motion.

00:03:25.605 --> 00:03:30.177
You're dealing with this idea of ecology, transformation, and evolution

00:03:30.177 --> 00:03:33.313
into something different.