Braille (2012), video, 3:08 min. Two hands on opposite sides of the building seamlessly circle it twice, but never meet, "reading" a code that sets out the name of the alphabet's inventor twice. The text though huge is legible only to those who can't see it, and can be seen only by those who can't read it. The alphabet's inventor, Louis Braille, used an awl to create his texts, the same instrument with which he'd accidentally blinded himself as a child. His invention revolutionized communications for the blind, but the school in which he taught forbade its use. Usage spread after Braille died, but it's now being superseded by automated reading technologies. The sextet from Lucia di Lammermoor used in this piece reflects both the paralysis and gorgeous order that can result from conflicting emotions among individuals in an interconnected social group. Within an individual, such conflict can result in abulia; it can also create consciousness. Conflict implies difference. In the language of dreams, Freud wrote, doubled objects can refer to repetition in time. This piece was made for Expanded Cinema 2012, a program of new video art created especially for the LED display wrapping the Omni Hotel in Dallas, TX. The display is 999' in width or circumference and 193' tall and is made up of bars of light, with one bar per floor, effectively comprising 333 x 20 "pixels." The audio was simulcast on 91.7 KXT public radio. Bart Weiss instigated the opportunity for artists to display works on the Omni, and I led the effort to create a template to enable myself and other artists to create works for it and then organized, edited, and co-curated the first Expanded Cinema program, comprising works by myself and thirteen other artists; more info about that program here. The image below shows part of the template; more info here. For my work on this and other projects, I received a "Mastermind" award from the Dallas Observer; the program was also recognized as among the top art events of 2012 by both the Observer and D Magazine; see here, here, here, and here.   More videos