Alan Michelson: Wolf Nation

Shattemuc is titled after one of the Indigenous names of the Hudson River. Sailing at night, Michelson shines a marine searchlight onto the land, echoing the nineteenth-century Hudson River Night Line tour boats, which pointed spotlights on passing local monuments such as Grant’s Tomb.

Appropriating and reversing the colonial gaze, Michelson’s spectral beam traces part of Henry Hudson’s 1609 exploration of the river from Hook Mountain to Haverstraw, where Hudson’s crew engaged in a bloody clash with the local Rumanchenancks. The wooded shoreline gives way to an industrial quarry, luxury housing, a village, and a power plant, tracing the river’s trajectory from Indigenous land to contemporary landscape.

The soundtrack is composed and performed by White Mountain Apache composer and musician Laura Ortman.