Tower of Faith

Tower of Faith is a tall multimedia sculptural assemblage whose narrow, hollow central compartment houses a vertebral column illuminated from below by a rapid succession of programmed LED lights. Changing colors ascend through the spine in repeating cycles, lending the anatomical structure an almost sensational, theatrical presence. The tower's elaborate domed crown incorporates surveillance cameras and opposing video monitors, allowing spectators on each side to interface with what is on the other. Its other two faces carry yin-yang formations with moving internal opposites, beneath which snowflake-like amalgams of symbols rotate independently against divided fields of black and white. Eight motors drive these irregular movements, their mechanical sounds mingling with an atmospheric soundtrack of sustained solfeggio tones to produce a continuous, hypnotic sequence. Above the illuminated backbone is an elaborate apparatus of competing symbols, and an amalgam of signs engaged in ceaseless activity, with rotating formations sustaining their opposition without arriving at a common resolution. The cameras promise access across the divide while preserving the two sides' physical separation. Tower of Faith brings devotion, spectacle, and mechanical repetition into an improbable communion, dispersing duality in the whirligigs of an agnostic equivalence of good and evil where the aspiration toward unity remains sealed in redundancy, and mutuality, in a catechism of bipolar solipsism.

Multimedia Sculpture

Wood; Aluminum; ; 3D printed parts; Fur; Paint; Programmed Motors; Programmed Led Lights; Magnifying Lens; Two Monitors with Surveillance Cameras; Audio Equipment with Soundtrack.

76" high x 9" wide x 9" deep

The vertebral column, illuminated by a whirling sequence of LED lights, is the sculpture's literal backbone. Its anatomical continuity contrasts with the fragmented, independently operating mechanisms above. The familiar metaphor of faith as a backbone takes on an unexpectedly physical and spectacular form. The surveillance arrangement, unlike an ordinary mirror or window, encounters the other side through a technologically mediated image. A division has been created and a form of access provided, but it is also an imposed way of seeing, emphasizing the contiguity of mutuality and separation. The spiritual and mechanical do not simply alternate but occupy the same acoustic environment, joining the audible operation of the motors to the devotional associations of the soundtrack. The extravagance of the apparatus comprising eight motors, multiple cameras, screens, competing symbols, a glowing spine, and a continuous atmospheric soundtrack is recruited into a monumental undertaking that never reaches a conclusive state, as the tower doesn't merely represent faith or its contradictions, but tirelessly enacts a peculiar regime of connection, opposition, repetition, and attempted reconciliation.