Stratigraphic Columns/Salinia, 2017

Black and white digitally altered photograph on polyester, mirrored acrylic, wood, fiber-board.

Stratigraphic Columns/Salinia is the latest in a series of photographic installations by John Roloff that investigate the material and chronological relationship of geology and architecture. The installation for 1440 Multiversity utilizes two subterranean niches along the main corridor of the Sayanta building and examines the building in context within the Salinian Block, the geologic bedrock of the Santa Cruz region. Photographic images from the 1440 Multiversity campus and the Santa Cruz area are digitally compressed and layered to form a strata-like sequence of non-conformities and displacements in geologic and human time. The digital compression is analogous to the processes of lithification, the creation of rock from sediment from which much of 1440 is constructed. Mirrors installed on ceiling and floor, extend the geologic and architectural illusion into a near infinite ascending and descending visual system interweaving narratives of human and natural time. This sense of simultaneity and scale from individual sites to landscape allows the viewers to see the micro while experiencing the macro and consider the expanses and limitations of our time on earth.