south florida sky (2022) imagines the comic hero Swamp Thing, present in physical form, rendered fluid and enmeshed within the biologically diverse space of the swamp. It reanimates and pays homage to the hand-drawn context while providing a queered unravelling of the character. This process of disidentification portrays both the swamp and the body as sites of radical interconnectivity. The work generates a network – a swamp of queered collectivity beyond the two artists.

Drawing from natural systems of interconnectedness – mycelium networks, siphonophores, the primordial ooze – the project rejects individualized modes of production and favours a polyphonic approach. Partially generated by GAN, a machine-learning framework fed images of Swamp Thing, wetlands, fungus and slime, semi-recognizable forms congeal and re-submerge in a digital mire, morphing into new configurations. Captured using 16mm film yet digitally produced, the work embodies José Esteban Muñoz’s call for utopian performativity: ‘a conjuring of both future and past to critique presentness’.