Michael Webster, “Sonic Fictions,” at Cecilia Coker Bell Gallery at Coker University, Hartsville.

“Sonic Fictions” by Michael Webster, curated by Austin Sheppard and Colleen Critcher, at Cecilia Coker Bell Gallery, Hartsville, 23/09/2024 – 18/10/2024.

Exhibition Text:
Sonic Fictions is an exhibition comprised of exhaust pipes, hunting paraphernalia, and fragments of imperialist monuments scattered across a fallow landscape and bathed in sickly blue light. Sound emanates from the components — recordings of insect infestations, ATV excursions, and foley from nature documentaries combine into a multi-channel audio installation. Resting on an elevated platform covered in mud and crisscrossed by tire tracks, each sculpture exists in limbo between life and death, culminating in a natural history of the Plantationocene.

At the core of the installation is a plaster artist-proof bust of William Gorgas sculpted by the monument maker Bryant Baker. Gorgas is credited with completing the Panama Canal through the revelation of mosquito-borne disease, after 20,000 workers died from Yellow Fever and Malaria in earlier attempts to bridge the two oceans. Gorgas eradicated most of the mosquito population, allowing for US control of the Panamanian isthmus and therefore a significant portion of influence in the Americas. The plaster bust within the installation is coated in bug glue for protecting trees from invasive insects, forever collecting more carcasses and further obscuring the likeness of Gorgas.