Urban life is completely disconnected from natural experience. There is no night in New York City, only an artificial dusk that lasts until dawn.
In duskspace, I want to synthetically recreate the experience of being in a remote country field at dusk – in the last place you would expect to encounter it. Everything about the experience is borrowed and abstracted- designed to evoke the sensations and feelings of the real thing while always being obviously and unequivocally manufactured.
WHAT WILL PEOPLE TAKE AWAY?
I hope that everyone who comes will enjoy the simple pleasure of lying in a field on a warm summer night looking up at the stars, even if it is only a simulatation.
Many will also appreciate the spectacle of a massive matte black dome structure surrounded by tall vegetation… dropped in the middle of a lower Manhattan streetscape. It will be awesome!
At a deeper level, I hope some will notice the juxtaposition of the scene within a scene. Beyond the hedgerow is the street, below the grass is the asphalt, and above the stars is the hazy glow of the city visible through the shadow of the geodesic lattice.
I also hope a few will stop to think about the meaning of authenticity of experience in our artificial world. If you enjoy an experience, does it matter that it is created rather than spontaneous? If we extract elements of a real experience and individually amplify them, is the result a copy? A simulation? An improvement? A mockery? Virtual Reality does not necessarily involve wearing a headset - it is our daily existance.
ABOUT ME
I was 30 the first time I ever stood outside under a truly dark night sky and saw the stars. I was awestruck… and scared.