Next to Nothing (2009) is a large-scale drawing of a plume of smoke made by the burning oil fields in Kuwait and Iraq, during the British and US invasions of Iraq in 1991 and 2003. The oil fields were said to be set alight in an attempt to provide cover against air strikes. The use of earth’s resources in an act of war circumvents the necessity for complex translations of matter into military arsenal. The spectacle of these giant plumes, visible from outer space, was a reminder of the damage that human conflict can to do to the biosphere. The drawing is constructed entirely from 1’s and 0’s- a fine tapestry of pencil marks that indicate the discrete states of binary transmission mediating these digitised images, as well as those binary states that underpin the violence of conflict. The marks remind us that smoke signifies what is no longer there, or that which is in a process of being violently reconfigured.

(Pencil on draft film 34” x56”)