Chandelle

Installation at ArtsUp! Projects
Fort Lauderdale, FL
Link to Installation

“The means of communication and mobility of the population now expose the individual to the observation of many men who have no other means of judging their reputability than the display of goods.”

The chandelier has two meanings: first, it is a symbol of status. When you enter a household, a chandelier will give the visitor a clue to their income and taste. It rests in two places, usually: at the entrance of a doorway or above the dining table. If the household is very wealthy, it is both. This makes sense: it is where guests most often visit. The etymology of the word “chandelier,” contains the second meaning. The root of “chandelier” means to “be white, or to glisten.” Framing the chandelier as both a symbol of status and of something white and glistening, I was reminded of a piece of writing that I did on a night just after a hurricane. The power was out, and I lay on the ground outside, watching the stars:

Memory is the construction of space and placement, especially when it is dark (without light). With no light, I only navigate from memory, sound, and touch.

Our mythologies are all tied to darkness and lightness.

1) Do our retinas create this mythology?
2) Why are we searching for the light in the dark, but never the dark in the light?

Stars are defined by absence. It isn’t a white sky with black dots; it’s a black sky with white spots. And they glow, flicker: they are alive amidst the blackness.

How does this relate to fear; fear in daylight as drawn to the darkness (cave) versus a fear of omnipotent darkness, darkness that falls everywhere that light does not touch. Light is the solace.

when we are in that darkness, we have only to face our thoughts, our minds, and ourselves. And that is more frightening than the dark: what we can create out of nothing.

It makes sense that we have the internet ---

--- not because it was only a step in the direction toward invention, but because man is constantly hiding his thoughts in the dark. And the internet is this sort of darkness that we project ourselves onto: but whereas at first this creation of virtual space was like adding ingredients to soup (rather innocently, a “database” for resources, a place to add ideas to), it has become a malignant host; virtual reality has replaced our actual reality, integrating itself so smoothly that we can’t see where it is

But when the electricity is off, we can see where it is not, and our hands can’t reach into that pot of boiling water we define ourselves by. Somewhere in all of this is the intersection between stars, the darkness, and what we are hiding from; that what we have created, en lieu of hiding, is a public projection that contains our darkness – that because we are hiding in it, it controls us.