Like the ocean at Fort Tilden, the tree’s history is entangled with histories of war. Once employed in leather tanning for military gear, its production was dominated by the Argentina-based British company La Forestal. During the Cold War, competing powers raced to secure it as part of the global contest for strategic raw materials.
The work plays on fuerte’s double meaning, fort and strength, asking which forms of strength endure and which histories remain.
This sonic activation amplified Fort Tilden’s Atlantic water as a resonant speaker, incorporating radio reception, fm transmission, and hydrophonic listening transduced through a tank of water tinted with Quebracho natural dye. Improvising with this site specific sound system became a practice of environmental attunement - leaning into resonant frequencies, building dissonances and harmonies of feedback, weaving rhythmic interventions into the folds of the kaleidoscopic textures emerging from the tank. In dyeing the amplified water with quebracho rojo, the performance allowed for an exploration of the sonic dimensions of the dye permeating the site of Pombo’s intervention. All were asked to add ice cubes of quebracho dye prepared by Pombo to the resonant tank throughout the performance, and were invited to then take a vessel of dyed ocean water home with them at the end.
Fuerte Quebracho was made possible with public funds from the Queens Arts Fund, a re-grant program supported by New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and administered by New York Foundation for the Arts and is part of New York Textile Month.
transmissive dispersals involves fm radio transmitters, a radio receiver, a tank of water, a pair of hydrophone microphones, digital effects processing, and a pair of old Yamaha speakers. Listening to the sounds of Bowery down below the island gallery fire escape, the performance involves playing with the feedback created in the final circuit of this circuitous signal path, hearing the radio’s vibration in the air mixed with its dispersion inside the water. These performances serve as meditations on the permeability of apparent membranes separating inside/outside, vibration/signal, water/air, centri-fugal/petal, object/force.
Video of transmissive disperals #2 by Kyle b. Co.
Video of transmissive dispersls #3 by Kyle b. Co.
Many thanks to Sunmi Yong at gmtc, and Mike Tan at island for making these performances possible.
Warehouse Market New York Edition was a three-day event that offered a place for artists, makers, designers & publishers to share their independently produced or self-made garments, fashion or textile related publications & objects, and exchange knowledge about fashion and clothes in context.
What material is your garment made of? How many hours went into producing this publication? What did the material cost? How much do you sell it for?
This edition featured a special focus on production/labor hours, production/labor costs, and retail pricing, encouraging transparency and conversation around value, sustainability, and independent practice through daily presentations and public programming.
Photos by Sinclair Li
Warehouse Market New York Edition was a three-day event that offered a place for artists, makers, designers & publishers to share their independently produced or self-made garments, fashion or textile related publications & objects, and exchange knowledge about fashion and clothes in context.
What material is your garment made of? How many hours went into producing this publication? What did the material cost? How much do you sell it for?
This edition featured a special focus on production/labor hours, production/labor costs, and retail pricing, encouraging transparency and conversation around value, sustainability, and independent practice through daily presentations and public programming.
Photos by Sinclair Li
I contributed the drums, recorded at Oori Studios.
Photo documentation by Elyse Mertz
The first four iterations of the series took place at Mr. Kills in Brooklyn, NY.
ESF #1 (2/22/25) featured Code Talker (Steve Long, Creek Schrey, Marija Kovacevic, Alec Goldfarb, and Aimee Neiman), with an opening improvised set by illegal advic3 (myself, Erinn Buhyoff, Susana Kwon)
ESF #2 (3/29/25) featured Sol Patches, with an opening set by myself, Celebrity Bitcrush, and Elizabeth Sonenberg
ESF #3 (4/19/25) featured Ghost Orchid (Laura Cocks, Rocio Sanchez, Kenneth Jimenez), with an improvised opening set by Ken Arii
ESF #4 (5/14/25) featured A Space for Sound, with an opening improvised set by myself, Noodt, and Jamila Ravel
Flyers by Shakeil Greeley
Future iterations of ESF TBA
Sometimes I wonder how the sun feels watching us needlessly destroy ourselves. Needless, because our planet, our sun and moon and solar system, provide us with everything we could possibly need. Greed, profit, acquisition accumulation, these are not needs. Just insatiable desires emerging from unexamined senses of lack, an incompleteness that’s uncomfortable to dwell within. So we destroy each other and our capacity to live on/as/with our Earth. Afterglow is a reminder that the Earth will exist even after we throw our pain at each other. Even after all our toxicity, waste, horrifying vibrations fill the planet, it will cleanse itself in our wake. It brings me comfort to know that we cannot destroy Earth, that we can only destroy ourselves.
recorded at Oori Studios, Brooklyn, NY
mixed/mastered by Jeff Cook
cover art by Shakeil Greeley
music video by Sam von Horn