A free standing light based installation that further explores the carnival aesthetic found in my work. The piece takes a series of differing components sifted from the variation of overlapping visual experiences found on a carnival midway and locks them together as a complete landscape of their own while still democratically allowing each unit to individually compete for the viewers attention and it's turn to bask them in a warm blanket of electric joy.

“The Serpent” is an installation designed originally for The Penn State Abington Gallery. The Fall 2017 show entitled “Integrated Carnival Energy Systems” is an experiment in creating multiple arduino controlled light systems that operate separately but work together to create the overall experience. At Penn State

As a child I was fascinated by the machines of war, by the power and seeming grace of missiles and aircraft. These were my familiar toys writ large and potent, inspiring thoughts of adventure and heroism in my early life. All that comes after the arc of the plane, the plummet of its cargo, was invisible to me, obscured by the sheltering media and by sheer distance from those un-exceptional un-American places where the consequences of warfare are everyday reality.
In some ways, little has changed with maturity. I hear and see reports from distant lands: abstractions for an audience who does not really want to know; simplified sequences of events that are familiar in their outlines, devoid of brutal detail and confusing complication. It occurs to me that a great many Americans are rendered childlike in our relationship to military technologies- some by our trust in the judgment of authorities who assume responsibility for their use, others by our frustrated helplessness to stop them. In either case, our innocence of the war machines’ flesh and blood effects is preserved. The damage done we do not understand.