R. Eugene Parnell

Lost Naturalists of the Pacific

November 6–29, 1997

Location / 82 University Street (Harbor Steps)

A multimedia presentation best described as an electronic book, Lost Naturalists of the Pacific is a reproduction of an early twentieth century book by French ethnographer and historian Pierre D'amarteau, which describes the lives and lives' work of fourteen naturalist-explorers of the nineteenth century who have been under appreciated or forgotten altogether. The work contains narratives, period photographs, video, and a collection of artifacts associated with the naturalists mentioned in the book.

The presentation of the work in electronic format questions the authenticity of the book and the text itself–and the world it purports to describe, what it means to be exotic, the nature of exoticism, and also the real of the authentic in a work of art. Is the authenticity in the aesthetics of the object, or in its provenance, and if its provenance is later found to be false, does the piece lose its visual appeal because its authenticity is compromised?

The work explores the never-ending subdivision of intellectual territory and transposition of that scientific terrain onto physical locations on the globe. It draws a connection among political colonialism of the nineteenth century, intellectual territorialism of the twentieth, and the intellectual property debates of the twenty-first century brought about by the rapid expansion of digital information technology.

This is an ongoing body of work begun in 1995 while in graduate school at the University of Hawaii. I have spent about four years manufacturing the objects/artifacts, and continue to do so. I finished the first version of the CD-ROM in September 1999; the second edition will be released soon. The SOIL incarnation was the first, and it did not include the CD-ROM book, although the same narratives were told throughout the text that accompanied the artifacts. I have exhibited subsequent versions of the installation at Kirkland Arts Center in Kirkland, WA, and Commencement Art Gallery in Tacoma, and at the Bellevue Art Museum in 2002.

Text by R. Eugene Parnell