The
Principle of Limiting Factors interweaves
photographs and video of disparate subjects: a dilapidated collection
of Greco-Roman
casts undergoing restoration, trees and tree rings, and academic bankers
boxes slated for destruction. Cumulatively the work meditates upon the
tenuous state of knowledge and the cyclical nature of history. The title
of the project references a common theory applied in dendrology (the
study of wooded plants), which explains growth limitations in forests
due to drought, pests, or other environmental factors. Taken within the
context of the work, the title speaks metaphorically to our own societal
and cultural limitations in accessing our history. We live in an era
of rapid change with potentially dire outcomes, yet we are struggling
with an epistemological quagmire—we cannot seem to learn from our
past—our own limiting factor. This work meditates on this phenomenon
via a macroscopic lens.
