Bytes of Me

When I caught COVID and developed Long COVID I was living alone in a shack on 100 acres in the mountains. Because of my isolation and lack of human contact, I very strongly imprinted on the landscape as a part of my self-image. It was a spectacular time for watching the seasons change, the animals migrate, and the exceptionally clear dark night sky. For a year and a half I did not see myself in a mirror, and looked out the window into the Gabilan Range and San Benito River instead.

Even though I have since relocated to the city, my ongoing experience of this illness has been entirely in the context of my relationship to the landscape. My symptoms follow seasonal patterns and are greatly effected by the environment. I understand my body and illness as a landscape and ecosystem. My diagnostic scans are maps and spaces for me to explore. The otherwise invisible and inaccessible interior space of the body is transformed into a space that a viewer can move through or follow as if reading satellite imagery. At some points it might resemble geology, patterns of animal movement, or the night sky. All of this world is within me and I share my ecoscape for others to explore.