Hypnoia

Environmental installation, Rotunda Gallery, Brooklyn, 1987

The viewer sees the environment through a black scrim, which renders the installation as a separate, unenterable space. The walls of the room are painted in dappled tones of black and grey so as to be dematerialised. A vertical pair of neon lights is positioned to one side, reflecting in tall narrow panels of plexiglass throughout the space, their position and degree of visibility changing with the position of the viewer. As the plexiglass reflects space in front of the neon tubes as well as the tubes, the further reflections appear to be beyond the physical limits of the walls. One of the plexiglass panels also captures the reflection of a film loop, only visible from some angles, of some shadow figures hesitantly descending a long flight of stairs.

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