Joel Tauber My work explores elemental philosophical questions about our relationships to nature and the environment in an often quixotic approach. By inserting myself into the environment in different ways, I investigate and raise questions about spiritual enlightenment, belief, empathy, ethics, and environmental activism. Seven Attempts to Make a Ritual (2000-2001) is a 7-channel video installation that chronicles my attempts to place myself inside the Earth in particular ways in order to achieve enlightenment. It is immediately clear that I am terrified my goals are impossible to fully attain. But, the films emphasize my foolish desire and determination to succeed despite each comic failure. There is no irony here. Foolishness is serious business; and a fools unconventionality can offer critiques to mainstream culture in non-didactic ways. My desire for a mystical communion with the Earth may be foolish, but it is this foolishness that raises questions for the viewer about our profound disconnection from our environment. Searching For The Impossible: The Flying Project (2001-2003) is a 32-minute film that chronicles my desire to fly and achieve enlightenment at the same time. The film emphasizes each of my comic failed flying attempts, but it also basks in my eventual triumph: my 1.5 hour flight 150 feet over the desert in my musical flying machine. The film contextualizes this flight with stories about my foolish mentors -- like Eilmer the Flying Monk -- who believed that the secret of flight was tied to metaphysics. During this project, I come to the belief that I will only be able to fly and achieve some degree of spiritual awakening, if I am able to construct an apparatus that links breath, the musical balloon of the bagpipe, and 40 giant helium balloons. As the film shows me flying in my musical flying machine, playing my bagpipes just well enough to fly; the viewer is left wondering about the power of belief and the limitations of reason. The Underwater Project: Turning Myself Into Music (2003-2004) is a 3-channel video installation that chronicles my investigations underwater and my desire to dematerialize into music. I recorded my depth readings every second during 40 scuba dives, and these depth readings were translated into musical notes; the deeper the depth, the deeper the sound. I was intrigued by the poetry of translating my movements into music and then allowing the viewer the possibility to move i.e. dance in relationship to my movements underwater. As a scuba diver, I was a heavy, cybernetic being, surrounded by darkness and creatures eating each other. The Underwater Project articulates this darkness and weight, but it offers a way out of that darkness by turning the gallery into an underwater disco, albeit a dark and contemplative one. Sick-Amour (2005-2008) is my most political and communal project up to date. It chronicles my crusade to save a sycamore tree stuck in the middle of a giant parking lot at the Rose Bowl. The tree like most parking lot trees suffered many indignities. The tree was starved for water and oxygen by the asphalt that surrounded it, it was attacked by swarms of pathogens and pollutants, it was aggressively pruned, and it was hit by cars. Out of love for the tree and as a symbolic gesture pointing to our need to care for the things stuck in our urban jungles, I have been caring for this tree directly for the last three years - watering it, building tree guards to protect it from cars, planting seeds to create offspring, constructing giant earrings for the tree, and persuading the City and the Rose Bowl to remove the asphalt beneath its canopy and protect it with a permanent boulder barrier. Now, I am planting approximately 200 tree babies (offspring from the tree) in green and public locals throughout California. At school sites like USC students build sculptures about the plight of urban trees, and these sculptures adorn each tree baby, forming larger sculptural necklaces. Sick-Amour exists as a documentary film, a 12-channel video installation in the shape of a tree, a series of photographs, and a number of permanent public artworks. My goal is that these artworks as well as my websites and the many stories in the press -- raise discourse in the art world and outside of it. I have always wanted to generate discussion about our relationships to the environment, spirituality, and ethics; and I am continually investigating different ways to do so. Artist bio compiled and written by Anna Mendoza, Curatorial Associate, Pitzer Art Galleries, Pitzer College