Nora Hartlaub

The Insurmountable Thing, 2019, performance, video, audio, 6:39, filmed at Jockey’s Ridge State Park, Nags Head, NC

The Insurmountable Thing is a collaborative performance / sound video piece by Tim McMurrin (Asheville, NC) and I. The work is about the Sisyphian struggle against climate change and the despair I felt at experiencing its effects along the barrier islands of North Carolina, where I was residing at the time. The work also references Courbet’s “Burial at Ornans” (reality check), as a giant ball of plastic is rolled through the dunes while mourners traverse and witness the event. McMurrin performs his sound sculpture, “The Ceremonial Sound Engine” in response to movements, environmental and atmospheric occurrences.

I sourced the used plastic ponchos, which I sewed into the “boulder”, from the ecotourism company I worked for during summers in between semesters as an adjunct. It is an ephemeral material transformed into a quantitative concrete representation of the impacts of tourism and climate change effects on the Outer Banks, as well as my role in perpetuating these effects. The performer, Marcel Segura-Ramirez, who roles the boulder, is of a generation younger than myself, and who I am responsible for leaving this struggle to.

Sound is integral to this work, and the use of differently sourced sound (analog / digital) is metaphor for our concrete actions juxtaposed against our ephemeral perception of climate change, and the battle we face in reconciling the latter. McMurrin’s “Ceremonial Sound Engine” provides the analog sound and his synth track created later in his studio are analogous to this metaphor.

Mourning Flag, 2019, Textile, 72” x 55”, video, 9:04

This work is based on an interview I conducted with Valerie Crew, an acquaintance (at the time- we became friends after this encounter), in her temporary home. She and her family were forced to relocate due to housing crises along the coast of North Carolina caused by economic inequality, climate change, and overdevelopment by large corporations. In her interview she speaks of concrete environmental impacts she witnessed as a result of five houses recently erected in her neighborhood by a developer. The flag contains academic articles typed with carbon paper onto fabric regarding the impacts of tourism on ecosystems in the region, economic ties to tourism, and the effects these systems have on expediting climate change.

The Road To Virginia, 2018, Temporary installation, video, 7:55

I traversed miles of rural highways in eastern North Carolina, sometimes almost to the Virginia state line on a weekly basis while living and teaching on the OBX. There are often printed and homemade political signs and flags along these roadways containing confederate imagery, political slogans, or other messages having to do with southern pride.  “The Road To Virginia”, an installation of 46 spray paint prints was documented from dawn to dusk in one day along these roadways, and is a response to the horrific events that took place in Charlottesville, VA, in 2017. The political impetus to detach historical meaning from representation is addressed through iconographic abstraction aimed at revealing this separation, its’ long reaching influences over time and space, and the reflection of privately held beliefs exhibited in public spaces.

Historical Wind, 2018, object, video, audio by Tim McMurrin, 2:14

Reproduced head in blue tarp (the chosen material of municipalities in covering up Black Lives Matter alterations to Confederate Monuments) of a Confederate Soldier Statue that was damaged by an early morning delivery driver in Reidesville, NC in 2011.

Obfuscation Exercise

Every Confederate monument in the state of North Carolina printed on 8 x 10 card stock, acrylic paint, Dimensions variable, 2018

Hush, 2016, soft sculpture and audio installation with fog machine, shown in 20’ x 20’ space

NC legislation aimed at limiting civil rights typed onto fabric and sewn into forms, two of which contain speakers playing layered voices whispering the legislation.

Reduction Result

2015, mixed media including NC HB2, dimensions variable

Equestrian Statue of North Carolina, 2015, concrete, fiberglass, foam, paint, 10’ x 6’ x 4’

In / Skin / Between, 2014, mixed media installation, dimensions variable.

Welcome to the deep cuts. This page contains videos and performances by myself and as the collaboration “Tan Komputer” with Tim McMurrin, sound maker