Wholphin

Story, Voice & Photography by: Stephen Ausherman
Sound & Video by: Hideki Kanno

Liner Notes:

To be more precise and less poetic, Jessica was the type of assassin bug commonly known as wheel bugs (Arilus cristatus), so named for their prominent cogwheel dorsal armor. Her scent was similar to that of her near relatives, the stink bugs, who don’t really stink, but rather smell quite like almonds. Jessica was sweeter. She reminded me of marzipan.

Her graceful demeanor belied her penchant for cannibalism and her enormous capacity for inflicting pain. Claude Stephens, Education Director at Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest, describes a single bite from a wheel bug thusly: “It felt like a dozen hornets burrowing under my thumbnail.”

Jessica never bit me, for I handled her delicately, with chopsticks.

Her death was not necessarily my fault. On that cool October afternoon, Claude assured me: “Now’s about when they all die off, anyway.”

And yet I can’t help but wonder: Had I set her free, would she have returned to the jerky arms of her former lover? Would she have lived to spike him full of enzymes and draw from his bitter shell a delicious confection of almond puree? Or would she have forgone her last supper to stay with me?

Jessica’s last photo appears here (upper left).

Biographies:

Stephen Ausherman was the 2005 Writer-in-Residence at Buffalo National River in Arkansas, Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming, and Bernheim Forest in Kentucky. Born in China and raised in North Carolina, he now lives in New Mexico.

Hideki Kanno creates outdoor installations and digital soundscapes. A graduate of Tokyo’s Musashino Art University, Kanno has exhibited in Spain and Taiwan in addition to numerous exhibitions in Japan. He was the 2005 Artist-in-Residence at Bernheim Forest. He lives in Chiba, Japan.

Ausherman and Kanno returned to Bernheim Forest in April 2006 to collaborate on a second series of digital projects.

Leave a Reply