Surface Tension | Ben Moren
Surface Tension is a sculptural installation which investigates the history of military waste dumping in Lake Superior through immersive, large-scale cyanotype prints on #12 canvas suspended from custom metal racks evocative of tenting and shipping materials.
The prints depict aerial images of Lake Superior's surface texture captured above sites where the US Army dumped barrels containing munitions manufacturing waste between 1959 and 1962. Supported by accompanying aerial video footage, the life-scale work draws contrast between the lake's dramatic beauty and the hidden.
environmental legacies beneath its surface.
About the Artist:
Ben Moren is a media artist whose process captures and reframes the environment through filmmaking, performance, sculpture, sound, and custom software systems to reveal and question anthropocentric viewpoints. His projects explore human perception, simulation, time and scale shifts, documentation, preservation, and our enduring relationship with the natural environment.
He has exhibited at Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Plexus Projects, Rochester Art Center, Soap Factory, IndieCade Los Angeles, and the Currents New Media Festival. His art website projects have received millions of visitors. He has created site specific and mixed reality projects for Northern Spark Festival in Minneapolis, Kulturpark in Berlin, and the Weisman Art Museum.
He has received Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative grants, a Visual Arts Fund grant from Midway Contemporary Art, and was a 2021/2022 McKnight Visual Artist Fellow.
He is a Professor at Minneapolis College of Art and Design teaching in the Media Arts department, the Art and Technology concentration, the Experimental Games minor, and the Sound minor.
Image: Detail of sculptural installation, Cyanotype, 5’ x 20’, 2026
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