Melissa Moore

Artist Statement

My sculpture and installation work involve creating invented spaces that challenge typical notions of orientation in space, confinement/extension of space, isolation, and the exposition of hidden spaces.  I make use of a wide variety of materials and media including video, mirrors, projections, string, wood, vinyl, crystals, light, and sound. The work develops into a “science of imaginary solutions” representing disjunctive ideas while simultaneously rejecting reality. It references a two-degree separation from reality with the intention of abandoning original scientific context; creating a para-scientific/a-logic world. My work is heavily influenced by and engages with scientific and mathematical principles in order to undermine and subvert them. I am also interested in thinking about the art object as a scientific/investigative tool, a way to give information but also receive information from the viewer. My interest not only lies in creating physical spaces but also receiving back from the viewer their experience of the physical space.

Para-scientific studies include:

• metageography

• radicalgeometry

• hyperspatiality

• archaebiology

• pyschogeometry

Here are some images that represent the above study paradigms

The Unfolded Crystal: Seduction of the Hyperreal

“There is nothing more indefinite, and at the same time more real, than that which we indicate when we speak of the “higher” (Hinton Fourth Dimension, 1904) The Unfolded Crystal: Seduction of the Hyperreal attempts to explore the dissolution of ternary space and tangibly objectify an existence that reaches beyond our relative human projections.
“At present our actions are largely influenced by our theories and projections.  We have abandoned the simple and instinctive mode of life for one regulated by the assumptions of our knowledge and supplemented by all the devices of intelligence.  Whatever pursuit that we are engaged in, we are acting consciously or unconsciously upon some theory, some view of how we see things.” (Hinton, 1904)

We are able to negotiate the world and make sense of the world according to our orientation in a space that is limited to 3- dimensions.  Space as we understand it is subject to limitation.  Seduction of the Hyperreal is meant to challenge one to reach further into the absolute realm of existence where there is nothing, beyond concept. This allows one to experience an abstraction of another dimension or projection of another dimension.  The experience encapsulates a going beyond reality, getting above our own reality to the “hyperreal.”  Hyperreal in this case evoking an environment that references a 3-D reality, but then creates an extension of that reality to go beyond what our cognitive 3-D abilities allow. In doing so, one approaches a place where we develop “hyper” vision or a vision that goes above our usual notions of experience and reality.  One can pass beyond the domain of practical certainty into a vast range of possibility.

In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, he references a relationship between existence in superficies and in solid space.  He created an environment where viewers were led to believe that they were experiencing a reality other then what they really were.  They were tricked into an experience using mere shadows, firelight and sound. Seduction of the Hyperreal also tries to engage viewers by creating an alternate physical space.  It attempts to create a dream-like environ using objects and spaces that take the viewer beyond their brain’s expected experience. It confines one to a space (similar to 2-D beings confined to a plane and 3-D beings confined to a cube) and then attempts to take the viewer beyond that space.  The proposed foundational environment is a cave-like world that is meant to connote an exposition of hidden places.  A cave is a space that is completely mysterious and concealed beneath the surface (similar to hidden dimensions). While it is part of a world with which we coexist, it is forgotten and unnoticed. It is a world all its own.

Seduction of the Hyperreal also continues to explore the notion of confusion in our experienced world.  The work in this space would on the surface seem a “normal” view of an environment, however, with more critical scrutiny there would be evident, a sense of incongruence (living plants underground; mirrors growing out of the ground from a space even further beneath a cave, or spaces within spaces that normally can’t physically or conceptually support each other). This collected work tries to make a connection with hidden dimensions beyond the experiential world and bring into view one interpretation of a projection of what that kind of space would look like.