bajío (the shallows )
A short-film about the second underwater transatlantic cable to enter New York’s information port. 

Narrated in the first person in bajío (the shallows) the artist embodies a transtemporal cable. As it recounts its history, and speculates into future-present, we travel through the sites it once was laid under. Exposing that power networks always intertwine, the film explores the inter-relation between ecology, infrastructure, and communication. 

Film Credits

Created, produced, and edited by Lucía Cozzi.

Special thanks to María Bonomi. 

Stills

Cable tip and plant in dunes, Lucía Cozzi. 
Cable and plant in dunes, Lucía Cozzi.
Plant, oysters, and cyborg-oyster scultures in dunes, Lucía Cozzi.
Cornell Burial Ground, previous grounds of the cable landing site, Far Rockaway, Lucía Cozzi.

Transcript

[ESP] 

Llego en barco desde irlanda, pero dicen que vengo de la colonia británica, 

voy por el fondo llano del mar, 

donde los gusanos acuáticos, con sus finos dientes, abren mi cubierta orgánica, 

exponiéndome a la vida marina …

en el 1911, me tienden por el atlántico y llego por primera vez a far rockaway,...

alli ya habia gaviotas, algas, y ostras, pero no habia plasticos, ni vidrios, ni papel.

me tienden con sus manos por la playa en huecos que cavaron y así atravieso las dunas…

hoy en día ya no queda nada…

me volvi desecho orgánico…

me mezcle con todo lo que se puso en mi camino…

desaparecí en los mismos huecos, o quizás ahí sigo…

enterrado….

lo único que queda es mirar para arriba…

imaginar en esos cables eléctricos mi presencia subterránea.

entro al territorio por una estación de cables, situada en un antiguo cementerio, del primer colono de la zona…

alli la red terrestre me acepta, en una unión de cobre con cobre,

y me enredo con los muertos, guardó sus secretos  

las redes de poder siempre se entrelazan. 

¿como sería hoy? con un corazón de fibra de vidrio mas finito que un cabello….

ya cubierto de polímeros no me descompongo, 

estaré aquí mucho después de que tu te vayas, serás acaso un antepasado en común con las algas, y los tiburones, con los plásticos, y los vidrios

[ENG Translation]

I arrive by boat from Ireland, 

but they say I come from the British empire, 

I go along the flat bottom of the sea, 

where aquatic worms, with their fine teeth, open my organic covering, exposing me to marine life... 

In 1911, I was laid across the Atlantic and arrived for the first time to Far Rockaway... 

Here there were already seagulls, algae, and oysters, but there were no plastics, glass, or paper. 

They laid me with their hands on the beach in holes they dug, and so I crossed the dunes…

today there is nothing left…

I became organic waste…

I mixed in with everything that got in my way…

I disappeared into the same holes, or maybe I'm still there…

buried…

the only thing left is to look up…

imagine in those electrical cables my underground presence. 

I enter the territory through a cable station, located in an old cemetery, of the first colonial settler in the area... 

there, the terrestrial network accepts me, in a union of copper with copper, 

and I get tangled up with the dead, I keep their secrets

Power networks are always intertwined.

What would I be like today? with a core of fiberglass thiner than a strand of hair.... 

covered with polymers, I don’t decompose,

I'll be here long after you're gone, you'll be a common ancestor with the seaweed, and the sharks, with the plastics, and the glas.