The first work of art in this exhibition is entitled Portal of Fragments. This piece expresses the methodical breakdown of larger entities into partitioned aspects, as well as the usage of glass in various forms of portals.

Projected onto thirty-one glass blocks is a video of Taughannock Falls, in Ithaca, New York. The word Taughannock means “the crevice which rises to the tops of the trees” according to a man named George Copway - a member of the Ojibwe First Nations people.* The projection consists of thirty-one different videos, one per each block, that are zoomed up sections of the falls.

Consider a waterfall: roaring, rushing, rippling, falling constantly. Each moment brings a different movement, a different pace, a new group of water molecules finding their way downwards and upwards, into a mist or evaporating into a steam-like mist. Near the edge of the cascade, droplets bounce and bubble as if they were boiling. As they fall, the molecules combine to resemble a textured, time-dependent veil of hair. At the base of the veil, the water redisperses into mist, frothing foam, or a never-ending ripple. Looking at individual aspects of the phenomena is mesmerizing and encapsulating, yet even more grand is when the entire waterfall reemerges into our perception after a period of studying the parts. Each of the moving sections flow together - seamlessly and inextricably. Water is the matter and gravity - on Earth - is the force; their interaction provides the energy. The matter cannot accelerate or fall without gravity, and nor will any downward ‘force’ exist without matter to act on – thus forms a third element, the ‘conversation’ between, which allows the molecules to break apart and re-form in a constantly changing cycle. There is a link between the illusory duality of matter and force, that when viewed together become the third entity, energy. Matter, gravity, and energy are symbiotic; however, one would not know this unless the parts are viewed in context with one another.

I am investigating how the medium of glass is capable of allowing a human to access more places than regularly possible: a microscope and telescope lens, a digital screen, and an architectural feature. When looking through a lens or at a screen, we enter landscapes that are not normally visible to the naked eye. The glass blocks are sandblasted on their front side, so that the light of the projection will adhere to the surface of the glass and mimic that of a television screen. The walls of these blocks however have imperfections and marks. This distortion is meant to imitate the visual experience of looking a microscope or telescope lens. There is an inherent difference that comes along with viewing a waterfall on a screen, or through a lens, compared to one in person: it is a two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional phenomenon, and it is a tasteless, soundless, temperature- less, scentless version of a full sensory experience. That is why although this piece is the form of a door - a physical barrier to a different place - that cannot be entered or exited. Although our imaginations can be stimulated and stretched, one cannot truly cross the threshold into the full-embodied experience of the world through a lens or screen; it can only be viewed from one side.

Because the glass blocks are hollow, and the light travels through both walls of the block, there is a backwards projection onto the wall behind the piece. The moving light on the wall references the memory that is conjured of an immersive experience when rewatching a video from that moment.

*Paris Harper,”What’s In a Name? - Taughannock Falls,” nystateparks.blog, August 26, 2014, https:// nystateparks.blog/2014/08/26/whats-in-a-name-taughannock-falls/.