UC San Diego

Damage Report is a series of four short 16-millimeter films, projected simultaneously in an installation, each of which focuses on one of the four elements--air, water, earth, and fire. The geographic focus is the so-called "Biotech Beach" area around La Jolla, California where scientists and emergency managers assess the risks of natural hazards--fires, earthquakes, weather patterns, climate change--through simulations.

The project calls attention to the paradox of our intensifying search for control over the elements in an era in which we have become a geological force: the "anthropocene."

Each element has its corresponding site, which together form a square on the map of San Diego County:

--a downtown weather forecasting startup originating in UCSD's Scripps Institution of Oceanography,

--a hydraulics lab nestled in the latter's idyllic beachside campus,

--the University's inland earthquake simulator at Englekirk Center, and

--a fire training center in the County's "Heartland," El Cajon.

Each film deals with a test, or series of procedures by which a given element is simulated in a controlled setting: a laboratory, an office, or an outdoor training ground.