The Wave Farm Residency Program is pleased to welcome Elia Vargas (Oakland, CA). Vargas's "Crude Illumination" is a light projection installation. The piece consists of an acrylic container of oil (crude) and dry ice (frozen carbon dioxide) placed on an overhead projector. As the room temperature oil causes the dry ice to sublimate (at -109.3ºF), the dry ice changes shape and state, and interacts with the liquid oil surface and light projection. This dynamic information exchange is projected onto a nearby wall, via an analog projection apparatus. "Crude Illumination" is a material and theoretical study of the influence of information embodiment in the anthropocene, an introduction to what Vargas calls signal flow.

Vargas writes, "The invisible yet physical state of transmission articulates the same infrastructure that enables 'Crude Illumination'–the same mysterious causality that mystifies western humanity. With transmission, and all its acoustic ecologies and dependent infrastructure technologies (transmitters, receivers, amplifiers, etc.), a strata of meaning solidifies, yet meaning we only articulate symptomatically. Like Crude Illumination, we see the materiality, but the invisible forces carry the energy." At Wave Farm, Vargas will develop the "Crude Illumination" project further, exploring the transmission possibilities of crude oil and frozen carbon dioxide.