Axis Mundi
Axis Mundi refers to the belief in a world center, often conceived of as a very remote, sacred mountain: a place where communication between higher and lower realms is possible. This concept appears across diverse religious and philosophical ideologies. My project is a search for such a center in a world of decentralization and fragmentation.
Accessing these sites traditionally entailed great physical effort symbolizing the internal struggle of the spirit over the body. Now, through the use of ubiquitous digital images one can “visit” these sacred spaces while sitting in front of a computer.. What does the specificity of place mean when we can move across the surface of the earth in seconds and reduce everything to a series of pixels?
Rather than treat digital technology as necessarily destructive to human experience, my work offers new ways of seeing that are reconcilable with the old. To this end, I combine traditional materials and nineteenth century photogravure technique with twenty-first century surveillance images. Many of the works are laid out on a grid, which reflects the conversion of the globe to a flat space as a feature of rendering landscape whether as art or as data in map making. Some of my formats are inspired by scroll paintings and are echoed in the digital action of scrolling. Through the use of screen captures, blowing up digital imagery to the point of unrecognizable pixelization or keeping the images as a “realistic representation'' I celebrate the beauty of the sacred on earth.