The Telluric Currents installation imagines invisible forces that flow through the earth and permeate space. Light passing through slits cut in paper creates a dynamic sculptural shape of diffraction and interference patterns. The viewers’ perceptions of the forms projected on the walls change as they move through the space, based on their lines of sight and the motion of the lights. The title “Telluric Currents” is inspired by literal magnetic fields as well as the fictional occult power described in Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum.
The marks cut into the paper are based on scientific drawings depicting lines of force, a systematic abstraction of an invisible power. I am interested in the way we use visual systems such as scientific drawings to understand and explain natural phenomenon. My work draws on this need to explain, on the ways we negotiate the mixture of anxiety and wonder we feel as we attempt to make sense of the world around us