an Experimental Space for Reconnection with the Natural World, v1 (Experimental Space) sought to explore the idea that we project our realities; that what we determine to be solid and ‘real’ is in fact consciousness perceived through the filters of our brains, and sometimes our hearts. By providing a dreamlike environment incorporating biomimetic sculptural elements, digital projections, and sonic frequencies, Experimental Space invited a rethinking of what living spaces – and the humans within them – have the potential to become. I was interested to deconstruct the idea of nature as ‘out there’ by establishing a connection to the consciousness of the built environment. Instead of constructing a new and futuristic space, I was curious how one example of a traditional home – in this case a rowhouse built in 1920 – might anthropomorphically alter itself to better communicate with its inhabitant(s).

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The experience began at a nearby café where guest participants signed up for time slots. From here they donned headphones and were led on a five-minute soundwalk to the site of the installation. The recording, Astral Totems, was designed to transition guests from the ordinary reality of collective consciousness, to the non-ordinary reality of a shared experience within the installation. The guide for the soundwalk communicated with gestures, not words, encouraging guests to do the same.

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Jenny Soracco led the soundwalk for the 2015 iteration of the project. The handcrafted metal sculpture she wore, Mask, was her own creation (photo below), which you may view more closely here at her website.

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During the 2014 version of Experimental Space, I led the soundwalk, with an ‘X’ drawn across my lips to help convey the silent request for no speaking.

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When guests reached the front door of the house, the guide motioned for them to remove their headphones. The same ambient sounds from the end of the Astral Totems recording was audible on the front porch, via a hidden speaker, thereby maintaining the sonic bubble of transition to non-ordinary reality.

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Once inside the house, guests were free to explore. From the front entrance, they had a sightline through the entire first floor of the installation. Most audible was the audio file, The Machinery Generating Reality, although sonic frequencies throughout other parts of the house could be heard, creating a multi-layered soundscape. Dried oak leaves (collected the previous autumn from the guardian street trees) and sand covered the floor, crunching and texturing footsteps as guests moved forward.

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The fireplace portal of hard triangular planes and sycamore branches, reached toward the pod bench surrounded by cotton triangles suspended with twine, connecting everything in a web. Pulling on the twine from any point effected movement and vibration throughout the installation. Mosquito netting above the pod bench was alive with a video projection of tree canopies.

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Seated within the soft confines of the pod bench, guests had a prime viewing spot for the projection mapped onto the inside of the fireplace portal, where extreme close-ups of orchids merged into a tunnel of light. Five mini-speakers (each encased in hand-sewn cotton cozies) were suspended at the back of the pod bench in a semi-circle to provide surround sound for the ambient Portal Purr.

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Straight ahead was Incubation of Dreams, a womb-like room where glass bottles appeared to drip down from the ceiling, suspended by a web of twine.

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Within the bottles were shreds of cotton cocoons, incubating dreams like moths. Cyclamen plants were suspended between the glass bottles, as cyclamen is known from ancient times to protect the dreamer.

Journal entries printed on thin blue paper were rolled up and placed into the mouths of several of the glass bottles.

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Astral Flora (previously exhibited at the Miller Gallery) was installed on the wall to the right. Projections of bumble bees crawling over the soft leaves of lamb’s ear filtered through the glass bottles to land on the tube-shaped cotton forms growing out of the wall.

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A Pollinator Hotel of coffee cans wrapped in cotton and stuffed with leaves provided a physical barrier to the kitchen beyond, while allowing ample visual freedom. The projection mapped into the kitchen window at the far end of the house showed a cat stretching in the window, sometimes mirrored, sometimes dissolving into swirls. This feline friend provided the sounds for Portal Purr. The sound file attached to the Blue Cat Mirror projection featured the intermittent screeching of raccoons (which had been recorded in the kitchen months earlier, when a family of raccoons were quite boisterous one summer night in the vacant lot behind the house). The raccoon screeches were also part of Astral Totems.

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From the bottom of the stairs through a veil of transparent fabric, guests could see the projection Portal Door Shroom Slug mapped into a door panel at the top of the stairs.

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Seed Pod Pluck strung along the stairwell invited guests to pull and release strands of taut twine as they climbed the steps, causing the seed pods to rustle-rattle. These were the same seed pods used to create the ambient crepitation in Astral Totems.

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The recorded guttural throat-chants of Tibetan monks emanated from a speaker at the top of the stairs, beckoning guests to climb the steps. The chanting track, Yamantaka (27:44 minutes), was performed by The Gyuto Monks.

“During this contemplative recitation, the monks identify themselves with the divine Buddha form Yamantaka (‘Terminator of Death’). In focused visualization, they enter his sacred Mandala palace, where they become channels for Yamantaka’s stream of life-giving blessings to all beings. Although Yamantaka manifests a terrific, triumphal appearance, this Buddha form is actually the gentle Bodhisattva Manjushri, archangel of selfless wisdom. This chant is believed to have the power to exorcise the human afflictions of anger, avarice, lust, and envy and transform them into creative wisdom.”

From the liner notes of the 1989 CD, Freedom Chants from the Roof of the World.

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Images of Yamantaka were occasionally visible (below) in the video projection, Portal Door Shroom Slug.

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“I feel like I’m in someone’s dream.” The voice drifted up to me and I smiled. I could hear the rustling of leaves downstairs while a small group of guests navigated their way through cocooned spaces of twine, sycamore branches, cotton batting, and mosquito net. As a performer within the installation, my costume, White Moths Gold Scarab, was created from the same elements I used to sculpt the interior of the house. My character presented one possible version of how an inhabitant of Experimental Space might transform to remember her human interconnectedness with the natural world.

I remained upstairs in the early part of the evening, behind a suspended cotton wall with a two-sided cotton mask sewn into it.

A chair was positioned in front where I was waiting, on the other side of the cotton wall, directly in front of the mask. When guests sat in the chair and peered through the back of the mask, I slowly and silently danced toward them, looking into their eyes while I swirled to the chanting. I had not anticipated the length of time for which individual guests might choose to lock eyes with me. These powerful one-on-one shared experiences elevated me to a higher state of consciousness, perhaps amplified by the Tibetan crystals suspended from the branches encircling my head.

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When I descended the stairs to interact with guests on the ground level of the installation later in the evening, those looking through the mask-wall upstairs saw a video projection. The projection, Orchid Cloud Mask Portal, was essentially a mirror reflection. Guests saw what someone looking at them from the other side of the mask would have seen, sort of. The front of the projected mask was alive with clouds and close-ups of orchids, and a blinking third-eye at the center forehead of the mask. The area around the mask originally appeared as the front of the mask-wall, with the chair clearly visible. As the video progressed, the wall and chair dissolved into clouds until the mask alone was floating in space.

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The earlier 2014 iteration of the project had a mirror positioned in the hallway on the other side of the mask. When guests looked through the mask, they saw themselves peering into the mirror from behind a mask with live video-mapped projections, including a blinking third-eye in the middle of the/their forehead. This mirror placement (and the subsequent Orchid Cloud Mask Portal projection) was inspired by my personal meditative practice of mirror gazing, in which I frequently experienced my face dissolve into a void.

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Sculptural masks invited guests to more deeply interact with the space, and each other, creating unique experiences as each person wearing a mask became part of the installation.

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When guests wearing the masks walked in front of the video projections, triangular pieces of mirror embedded onto the masks scattered the projected images around the rooms.

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The mirrors on the masks, combined with the intricate web of twine throughout the installation, suggest the beginnings of a physical manifestation for the metaphor of Indra’s Net.

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Thinking about future versions of Experimental Space, I would like to further develop the concept of Indra’s Net, by having mirrored masks available (required?) for each guest to wear.

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“Tools for extending perceptivity to all scales of nature are built spontaneously, playfully, experimentally, continuously modified in home laboratories, laboratories that are homes.”

– Lebbeus Woods, The New City (1992)

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For as long as I can remember, I have perceived consciousness within all parts of my world. No wonder I was drawn to Lebbeus Woods’ theoretical renderings of anthropomorphic buildings in flux. Although unfamiliar with Kurt Schwitters’ Merzbau before I made the decision to site the installation in my own home, I did cultivate inspiration from this work in the later development of Experimental Space. And while I received additional inspiration from the art installations of Henrique Oliveira, and Chiharu Shiota, my main touchstones were the shelters of birds, insects, and arachnids.

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Video documentation from the 2014 iteration of the project, including footage with lights turned on, is viewable below.

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