Where now in our gaze?
Walking along a road at night, one encounters a succession of streetlights. Some are arranged with regularity, others suddenly disrupt the rhythm of spacing. With each step, my shadow elongates and contracts; under multiple light sources, it fractures into several figures. The shadows of trees, however, do not alter through self-consciousness. Their scale shifts only in relation to my distance from them.
Just as an increase in light sources multiplies shadows, an increase in others multiplies the self. The gaze and intellect of others may expand or contract the ego, yet this proliferation carries no mass—like shadows themselves, it is an existence without particles.
Conversely, at the moment one attempts to observe oneself as oneself, the ego dissolves. Self-observation depends upon inner sensation and internal states; the self emerges only incidentally, within unintended consciousness.
“You” exist in as many forms as there are observers of you—two, three, perhaps a hundred. What, then, exists between these competing selves? Who is the “you” standing before the sculpture and thinking? Or is it the sculpture that compels thought?
Perhaps the streetlights I pass each day are themselves “you”. I find myself hoping that you are a tree.
That which is constructed from memory lacks its proper mass. What remains may be an external skeleton alone, or an internal environment that has altered and then ceased. Where have those who were once here gone?
They may persist within my consciousness, not as antagonistic presences, but unintentionally—as embodied traces of phase transitions or discrete symmetries.
Whether working from a model or relying on shadow, the work is continuously redefined through interpretation, incorporation, and adaptation. Consciousness is divided, fragmented, and isolated, yet its boundaries remain at once fragile and discernible.
When one’s own shadow is regarded as an other, does a phenomenon of collision arise, or does symmetry prevail? The responses are necessarily multiple.
Divide yourself in two. Separate yourself from the ego that stands before the formed shadow. Apply the function of “mutual permeation through collision” to the differences within the constantly shifting environments inside and outside the self.
This exhibition is a site for examining how I, the sculpture, and the other interact and operate in relation to one another.