12018-11-25T20:22:23+00:00Paul A. Harris0462def817acd13db43634107b67e5f0f737f3f122Installation, 8' wide, 4' high. Miocene stones, Pleistocene holes, Holocene petriverse, Anthropocene car jack.plain2018-11-25T20:27:13+00:002017110508345120171105083451Paul A. Harris0462def817acd13db43634107b67e5f0f737f3f1
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12018-11-25T20:16:52+00:00Suspended8plain2019-03-04T17:39:58+00:00Balancing stones is a contemplative practice that suspends awareness, passing time without time passing, opening an aporia where precarious ephemerality and aeonic calm commingle. In this “phoenix flash of reverie” (Bachelard), a nuanced, layered history unfolds: these shore stones were collected at the Palos Verdes Peninsula, a lithic formation comprising a metamorphic core complex that originated miles deep in the Farallon Plate subduction zone before bobbing to the surface as the Western Transverse Ranges Block slid northwest in the Miocene epoch. Over the last tens to hundreds of thousands of years, the stones have been shaped by tide-tumbling and made holey by the laborious boring of piddocks and bristle worms. Tuning body and mind to stones suspends disbelief in the world and incites aesthetic responses, including petriverse (text written with, on, and about stone). The car jack serves as a jarring return to human history and the entanglements of geological research, fossil fuels, and the Anthropocene.