Portal

One of my favorite things as an artist is how different mediums create different spaces for our experience. A large painting immediately confronts you, and you and other onlookers can experience it at the same time. Yet no matter how present you feel with the work, no matter how ready the audience, none can enter the painting. A backlit screen—whether a computer, a smartphone, or a TV—is hyperlinked to billions of opinions. It is an entire network of people watching people, without actually interacting face-to-face, sharing tangential but never actual experiences.

Meanwhile, a book is private and intimate in a way that other works of art and culture cannot easily be. When you read a book, there is only you and the book between your hands. No matter how heated or wide-reaching the subject matter, a book stands on its own, and each reader must consume the book’s content alone. There are no hyperlinks or reaction buttons, and no big opening receptions. There are just the pages in front of you, advancing you to the next chapter one page turn at a time.

Portal is like a life-size book. It embodies the showy zeal of a gallery reception, the buzzing interactivity of social media, and the intimacy of a book. It is a book whose scale compromises its ability to be private, creating an intimate space in the midst of its public presence. People can peer through the tunnel book, or run, crawl, roll, and dance while traveling through its pages. It takes a person’s full range of motion to be able to maneuver its pages and travel between the tunnel layers. It takes a sense of wonder and play to truly appreciate--and not just spectate--on what this project is about.