39.409001, -100.645781
Developed in consultation with University of Kansas hydrologist Dr. Sam Zipper, this interactive online project explores both problematic and hopeful relationships between landownership, water rights, property boundaries, and diminishing groundwater in the western United States. Overlayed on a satellite image of the Sheridan 6 Local Enhanced Management Area (Sheridan 6 LEMA) in Western Kansas, a custom JavaScript visualizer generates networks between randomized selections of center pivot irrigation wells combined with the viewer’s cursor location—visualizing the interconnectedness of a limited aquifer that requires intentional stewardship to be preserved. The entire area can be zoomed in on, as well as moved east, west, north, and south, by simply moving the mouse or scrolling.
Kansas is the only state in the United States with mandatory statewide data collection related to groundwater pumping by agricultural producers. Through sustained cooperation, the producers in the Sheridan 6 LEMA region have significantly reduced their aquifer withdrawals and slowed the decline of the aquifer. This effort provides an important precedent for collective action and regional coordination to sustain limited groundwater resources for future generations. The Sheridan 6 LEMA stands as a bright spot of hope in the realm of sustainable groundwater management and has the potential to serve as a model across the country.
39.409001, -100.645781
Steve Rossi
2025
Custom coding by Makenzie Gallagher
The work is part of a larger series, entitled Transitional Spaces.
34.455988, -103.012734
In this collaborative video and sound project, satellite imagery from the American Southwest landscape showcasing the circular forms created though groundwater pivot irrigation is superimposed and contrasted with imagery of light reflecting on the surface of water. The project’s intention involves, in a poetic way, visualizing the vast amount of groundwater that is used to support industrial agriculture in this region supplying the nation, and the world, with an enormous amount of unsustainable agricultural produce. The pumps at the center of each irrigation circle, visible in the video, draw an average of 1000-2000 gallons of water per minute from the unseen and unreplenishable aquifer lying several hundred feet below the ground’s surface. An immersive and meditative video and sound experience is created as the combined satellite imagery from the Southern Great Plains and the rhythmic pattern of water's shimmering surface is paired with Robbie Wing's looping experimental sound score, created through hydrophone recordings and synthesized sound editing. Ominously atmospheric visceral sounds of water flowing can be heard and felt in a surround sound exhibition space. With natural resource stewardship in mind, this project seeks to draw attention to, and to question, the social value systems leading to the wasteful use of the planet’s limited natural resources. The project title is taken from the GPS coordinates of the satellite source images.
34.455988, -103.012734
Steve Rossi
2024
Floor projection
Dimensions variable
Installed at Mueller Gallery, Caldwell University, in Caldwell New Jersey, as part of Steve Rossi's 2024 Prior Appropriation solo exhibition. The work is part of a larger series, entitled Transitional Spaces.
Beneath the Stream
Sound by Robbie Wing (Cherokee Nation)
2023
Twenty-five minute loop duration
Hydrophone recording at Roeliff Jansen Kill, post recording processing.
More information about Steve Rossi can be found at: https://steverossisculpture.com/.
More information about Robbie Wing can be found at: https://www.robbiewing.com/.