In the Moon we understand a lifeless earth. Asteroids and comets collide with the lunar surface and form well-preserved impact craters, about half a million of which found thus far have diameters greater than 1 kilometer. The prevailing hypothesis today is that the Earth–Moon system formed as a result of a tremendous impact 4.5 billion years ago. This supposedly Mars-sized body (labeled “Theia”) is believed to have blasted sufficient material from the proto-Earth into orbit to form the Moon through accretion. To look at the Moon is to acknowledge one’s entrance into composition with it at birth, just as our dying bodies enter into composition with the air, as the beast does with the full Moon, and as the Space Shuttle Challenger crew compartment did with the ocean during its premature return to Earth.

As we hurdle through space on our actively destabilizing terrarium, with our natural satellite in tow, contained in a solar system that we believe to know so well based on retrieved materials, planetary radar, laser altimetry and stereo image analysis, neutron spectrometry, geothermal mapping, assorted spacecraft, and an array of other techniques for measurement, one could almost think that with a telescope we’re simply seeing an image of the Moon – afterall, the Earth-Moon composition involves a synchronous rotation,wherein the Moon keeps nearly the same face turned towards the Earth at all times. Yet where there is close vision (the thought of the utter contingency of a solar-system) and not the measured long-distance vision, space is not visual, or rather the eye itself has a haptic, nonoptical function: no line separates Earth from space, which are of the same substance; there is neither horizon nor background nor perspective nor limit nor outline or form nor center; there is no intermediary distance, or all distance is intermediary. This exteriority of thought, the force that is always external to itself – is not at all another image of thought in opposition to the image inspired by the imperium of truth (mythos) and/or a republic of spirits (logos). This is a problem-thought instead of an essence-thought or theorem, a thought that appeals to a people instead of aspiring to universality.

Again, the utter groundlessness of our existence. “Nature” qua the domain of stabilized reproduction, of organic deployment into which humanity intrudes with its hubris, callously disrupting its circular motion, is man’s fantasy; nature is already in itself “second nature,” its stability always secondary, an effort to reconcile a “habit” that would restore some balanced system after catastrophic disturbance.

~Andrew Allen Wilson

“Stimulus Package” began as archeological expedition. The field guide was a hand-held electronic device operated by Todd Margolis, feeding the group a steady stream of information, leading them from one landmark to another. Throughout the duration of the piece, the audience was transformed from a group of passive observers into a group of active participants. They became the new authors of the piece, responsible for controlling and guiding its direction, collectivity determining its outcome. With the aid of simple tools and basic information, objects were located, uncovered, and discovered. A toy rocket was dug out of the ground and given flight after being transported to a busier, more contentious space. A bundle of library books were unearthed and divvied up (kidnapped) by all of the participants. The contact information of the participants was left in the hole, forcing a future interaction/conversation between participant and author, extending the scope of the piece outside of the given time frame into the unknown future; thus creating an alternative form of dialogical exchange that is surprising, compelling, and unpredictable.

~Noah Doely

This bathroom arrangement is not the only system being encroached upon. An MP3 player has been patched into and works with a breadboard to mechanically sound these base aural gestures. The denoted purpose of the consumer-grade MP3 player is co-opted here. Similarly with the bathroom, being a place for seedy activity even though it has such a pragmatic purpose, because there are only degrees of separation from the bodily parts involved turning from facilitating necessary base functions to the perverse commingling of sensors and mechanisms. Duarte’s Psst taps into this and perhaps the mere degrees that separate consumer goods from becoming instruments of terror, the mere degrees that separate science and warfare.

- Zac Kime Montanaro

I am overcome with inquisitiveness and wonder with the sight of bodies strewn on the floor and curious onlookers taken by the spectacle of a film shoot. What is the scope of this moment? Does this event end at the camera lens, or does it extend further? What then is the camera? Is it itself a prop, a documenter, an actor, or a player? Are we witnessing theater? I ask because is not the whole world a stage? What of the young woman, the one in the white lab coat and pink hair peeking from under that wig? Is she herself a starlet, an auteur, or a sorceress? Where does she get her powers? Is it because she is the director that they heed her command, rising from the feign of death? Maybe it is because she is a filmmaker that she wishes to give movement to these images and because she is an artist that she finds meaning in this moment. Or is it because she is a woman that she can bring life into this world? Is it Deleuze? His name conjured, and I must surely confront him. What of the rush of sensation, as we bear witness to the unnatural, created by the artifice of set and scene moving through time? If he must be anywhere, then would it not be in the afterimage- the close-up of a face as it becomes animate during the incomplete process of a body becoming alive? Would he also say that we are now left with more than just bodies?

- Jerry Truong