It’s Not a Hole, It’s a Portal

It’s Not a Hole, It’s a Portal: Project Statement

This installation is inspired by a recurrent set of visions that alternate during my ketamine infusions. The first is a black room filled with haze, where shadowy silhouettes are only visible by way of a purple light, indistinct in origin. Against this backdrop, a fluorescent green algae-looking formation emerges and expands. At first the green appears in an erratic sequence, then it connects throughout my field of vision, covering the purple dark. It creates a network (neural/nucleic)–a connectivity that exists overall.. 

The significance of these two scenes is of great importance, philosophically and therapeutically. The dark room represents what in Eastern philosophy is known as “the Veil”. This is the everyday world we live in as humans, each composed of seemingly separate matters with individual ways of understanding our experience. This room is hazy; it clouds our ability to see our shared being. When lost in thought and judgment, or consumed with emotions, I remain here, unable to see around me. When I empty my mind on the other hand, the green ignites and the network extends, dispersing the fog. I am nothing and everything at once, indistinguishably connected with all existence. 

When entering the installation, a subject is immersed in almost complete darkness. A fog-machine creates a light haze while subtle purple light outlines silhouettes throughout the room. On select silhouettes there are touch sensors. When a subject touches the censor a black light is triggered, illuminating a segment of a bright green algae-like structure suspended from above. Triggering the black light signals a subject’s ability to connect with the realm of existence beyond the individual. In order to see the complete sculpture at once, three subjects must trigger all three sensors simultaneously. The collaborative illumination of the sculpture represents our oneness with all existence as well as our interdependence on other life.