16 x 18 x 12 feet | hand-cut paper, hand-dyed PETG cutouts, reflective styrene cutouts, 3-channel video projection, colored string, lighting, 14-channel audio (custom speakers and software by Dorsey Dunn) | 2009 | Armory Center for the Arts | Pasadena, CA
When Sinead offered me this self-enclosed room for her show at the Armory Center for the Arts, I immediately knew I wanted to make See Through Super Sag my most immersive installation to date. I blacked out the open ceiling to make a cave-like space — to conjure an environment that confounded gravity, a kind of stasis chamber.
The installation became dense, gossamer, penetrating. A three-channel video projection produced torrents of glistening particles that danced through layers of hanging paper cutouts and brashly hued transparencies. The floppy plastic see-through forms hung suspended among the delicate paper, all supported by an abundance of colored string that secured even the most fragile tendrils in mid-air repose. Small audio speaker boxes descended from the ceiling, punctuating the visual space like incongruous aural beacons — a penetrating twelve-channel self-generated sound-field designed by sound artist Dorsey Dunn.
The environment sucked you in and slowed your heart rate. Both tranquil and unnerving, the room redirected the mind to a seemingly subliminal place where the earth’s cadence slowed and time became elongated.