(TIME-SPACE) RECURSION ROOM, NORTHERN PATAGONIA // CURATED BY: TIFFANY THOMPSON

In early 2023, I had the opportunity to create a new durational drawing project in northern Patagonia. The surrounding landscape is breathtaking, with the Andes Mountains in the distance and old forests speckling the land; a palpable energy permeates, like whispered secrets carried on the wind. With every step, you can feel the weight of geological time pushing up to meet your feet. Looking out in any direction, you see an embodiment of nature's duality – its perceived fixedness and capacity for transformative change. Glaciers continue to sculpt the terrain not far south of here, and rivers weave through valleys born from eons of geological process and the dramatic changes imparted by the famous 1960 regional earthquake. (Time-Space) Recursion Room comes from my desire to juxtapose humble marking visualizing time at the human scale set against the vastness of the surrounding geological landscape. I wanted a structure for the drawing that defined a small space without imposing on the landscape. I wanted the walls transparent, allowing echoes of the landscape and its colors to function as the backdrop for my marks. By day, the translucent walls of the 3-meter cube act as a light wick, responding to the light rhythms of nature. They auto-illuminate, capturing the ethereal beauty of sunrise and sunset, becoming a vessel for the sky's light.

At night, this room transforms— the translucent walls become screens, holding projected images of the surrounding landscape. The room acts as a container for time, holding marks, moments, images, and bodies from multiple multiple time flows simultaneously. The landscape, both geological and transient, comes alive in this space. The abstract field drawings, each line marking 3-seconds, merge with the projected images, creating a dreamlike, blurred, color-rich translation of the land's essence.Time-Space Recursion Room is an invitation to a human experience. Visitors can enter and engage with this space, becoming part of the experience. By day, they enter a space that amplifies and separates them from the landscape. The colors of the fields, trees, and sky become the backdrop for the drawing. At night, the drawing is a fleeting monument to our brief yet intense interaction with this land; the drawn marks appear and disappear as the projected images dance across the translucent walls. The cube has no ceiling, allowing visitors to look up and absorb an ink-black sky punctuated by an impossibly dense scatter of stars. This project is about light, landscape, and duration that evokes a unique interplay of memory, both shared and individual. As visitors step into the 3-meter cube, they become part of a poetic experience transcending time and space. Their memories become intertwined with the very essence of the landscape, creating a distinct sense of place and time that they will carry with them.

note:
The cube’s walls were planned to be constructed from greenhouse polycarbonate panels but shipping difficulties resulted in a last minute pivot to greenhouse plastic sheeting allowing the project to continue. This change meant the walls moved with the wind, the marks on them dancing— it felt like the room was breathing. Nights after the activation event we revisited the room filled with blankets and cushions. Staring.up at the stars surrounded by fluttering walls filled with marked lines and projected images, it was the first time I was able to experience the room as a viewer without the noise of my internal critic or international thoughts creeping in. I was able to accept it as it was and exist in the present it defined shoulder to shoulder with new friends and collaborators.