Jelena Berenc

16” x 16”

Clay board and string

Two clay boards are connected with strings. On the first panel strings emerge from a perfectly arranged grid and connect randomly with the second panel. 

The universe progresses from order to disorder, following the Second Law of Thermodynamics, Entropy and   the concept of entropy, which provides a one-way direction for time. 

 While one may follow a single string and believe they are on a straight path—much like others around them—the collective result is random and far from the original perfect grid. In complex systems where multiple simultaneous timelines interact, disorder emerges as a result of individual choices. Is it possible to step back, view the universe as a whole, and attempt to straighten our paths? Or are we simply too close to our own strings to notice they are no longer straight?

68” x  52” 

Paper, oil paint, house paint, gesso, and 12 pencils

This work utilizes twelve pencils to represent the twelve fermions of matter, used simultaneously to record continuous thoughts. Each pencil varies in grade from 6H to 9B. Four distinct materials, representing bosons as force carriers, are applied unevenly across the paper. The paper functions like the Higgs field, providing the foundation that allows these materials to interact and materialize.

While all pencils are used simultaneously to convey the same information, the resulting traces vary greatly based on their specific energy levels—determined by the pressure and angle with which they were held—and their interaction with surface materials like oil paint or gesso; interacting fields creating the material world.

Ultimately, this process reflects how our thoughts, however unique, are continuously molded by the environments with which they interact.

Sizes vary from 1”x1” to 60”x130”

Mixed media

20,000 drawings are drawn without any limitation regarding format, material, and subject matter. 

Each drawing is numbered in random order. Only some drawings are installed onto the available walls while others are left in a pile and rolls (big formats are rolled up). Drawings that are installed onto the walls are randomly chosen from the pile as well as the drawings with a significantly important number related to particle physics, i.e. the bottom quark mass is 4.183 GeV/c^2 so the 4183rd drawing is installed onto the wall.

1. Many Worlds: Conjuring 20,000 of anything, data points, words, drawings, or any other information is an ambitious challenge. Each drawing carries uniquely created information. Within each of 20,000 informational units there are numerous other informational statements (individual drawing decisions) propagating drastically the amount of information. Complex systems with a large amount of information, visible and invisible, result in multiple interpretations depending on the context. Depending on the observer's interaction and context the Artpiece can be split into multiple interpretations, hence the title reference to the Hugh Everett III many worlds interpretation. Each of the statements collapse the Artpiece’s meaning into a single state, losing the information about its superposition. Viewers being exposed to a particular statement will interpret the piece that way. How much is our view of the universe influenced by the previous interpretations? 

2.

Visible and invisible: As a whole, the Artpiece's information quantity is so large and complex, 20K drawings, that no one person will ever be capable of perceiving its totality but only its parts; an image here and image there; one at the time, much like our micro and macro universe can be observed only in parts. Virtual particles, dark matter, dark excitons, neutrinos, etc. alter and make the world the way it is through their interactions yet they are invisible just like the hidden drawings in a pile. 

We see the partial image of the whole and base our focus and confirmed opinions on it (Isaac Newton is/was right till Albert Anstein looked and saw the other relevant information); we see the partial image and develop a theory based on what we see in the moment. What would the world look like if we could see the invisible all at once?

The Artpiece in its totality cannot be seen but breaking it down to its fundamental components that are part of All, can provide a comprehensive understanding of all even the parts we can not see or we don't know about, but only if enough samples are looked at; much like the particle physics is the foundation for all including that which we cannot see but it took many versions of particle theory before we got to the standard model. 

3.

Information: When we are faced with a seemingly infinite amount of information (20k drawings), our understanding of the Artpiece, or the system, is in the state of possibilities, and the piece’s meaning depends on the observer (measurement). More observations are made the more similar they will be, collapsing the matrix into a single value. 

Can we comprehend the state of the whole system with copious amounts of information especially when info is hidden like it is in the pile or the rolls. How are we to find the piece or information that is judgemental to understanding the system? Is there such crucial info or is it about looking for the overall probability.

Also, in order to understand /see the whole piece one would have to physically interact with the pile and physically engage with the system. 

4.

Life: Drawings are an informational collection of personal memories, visual stimuli, observations, and thoughts. We have impossible goals, labour intensive, ambitious, and we don’t know if the goal can ever be reached. Collectively the approach is the same. We make impossibly ambitious machines and devote years and generations worth of labour intensive work. All in the name of understanding something. 

Additionally, all drawings are numbered on the front and are for sale. Every time someone buys the drawing an extra one is made to replace the one that was sold, adding to the number of drawings that are actually drawn for this piece. Others add to the complexity of life making it harder and adding the amount of labour. However, through this brief interaction the Artpiece is permanently altered because the new replacement drawings are different and the buyer becomes entangled with the Artpiece. Through the interactions the system is altered and is materialized in its current state. 

Like Sisyphus infinitely labouring within Plato’s cave we try to make sense and reason for and among shadows, for the insatiable urge to understand the world around us.

5. For every scientific theory and every published scientific paper, which has its interpretation of the world supported by the facts and data information, there are always multiple other ones with opposing but equally compelling data and facts on the same subject. In Art multiple, or all interpretations/ theories are equally valid and equally fragmented, possible and impossible. All interpretations make a piece because the piece, just like anything in the universe, is in a state of superposition. We may write 20K papers, one for each drawing, with perfectly accurate data points and facts, and some may agree while others grossly disagree in their interpretations, but only because they are analyzing a small part of the whole. The state of an Artpiece requires all the interpretations to be considered regardless of the impossibility of human consciousness to comprehend it. 

If the Artpiece is in superposition it would require a consciousness in superposition in order to be comprehended and not collapse it into a definite state of opinions. Perhaps in order to understand the Universe our consciousness/observations should be in a state of superposition opposed to defining the parts. Q-numbers instead of classic-numbers. 

Each of 20 10” x 14”

Paper, wood stain, white marker

Paper is uniformly covered with the woodstain. After drawing two straight white lines with a ruler and a marker, paper is crumpled. 

Does a straight line appear straight?  Can a true identity ever be what it is or is it defined by the state of the other identities?

Our state of being, our attempts and actions are altered by other forces, visible and invisible, by the laws of physics, society, family, etc. 

Einstein’s General Relativity of curved space-time due to gravity. 

Dark matter and bending of light through gravitational lensing.

Each of 16 14” x 10”

Tracing paper, carbon paper, empty mechanical pencil

Write continuous thoughts on the two layers of tracing paper and carbon paper in between. The whole time while writing the marks are invisible and can only be viewed after the sheet is complete as the carbon paper transfers the writing marks. 

Some of the very complex information is invisible but the effect of it materializes something else into existence. The examples are numerous from the Higgs field, Dark matter, neutrinos, virtual particles or quantum fields, to  our daily actions and choices. Attempting to decipher the invisible information is difficult, however defining something through its effects makes the invisible tangible.  

Each of 16 14” x 10”

Carbon paper

An Art process of Hidden Perceptions I consisted of writing continuous thoughts on the two layers of tracing paper and carbon paper in between. The whole time while writing the marks are invisible and can only be viewed after the sheet is complete as the carbon paper transfers the writing marks. Through the process the carbon paper initially used only as a tool, as a field through which the information will materialize, becomes its own Artpiece with its own meaning. When exposed to the light, hence installed on the window, the traces of the writing marks are clearly visible. 

Through the interactions the carbon paper was altered by the forces, materializing the information but in reverse (white marks on black). From invisible forces (top layer tracing paper covered with blank pencil), to partially visible information (carbon paper visible only with the lite source going through), and finally to the clearly visible materialized information (bottom layer of the tracing paper with the carbon transfer on it). 

Installation varies 

Used Bricks 

Used bricks collected from different Chicago neighborhoods. Trace them onto the wall in an arrangement resembling the standard particle model. Crash the bricks onsite and install them on the pedestal in front of the wall drawing. 

Marker on paper

8.5” x 5.5” x 3.5”

Process: 1,000 page book has a total of 4% filled-in pages with the bits while the rest is blank, corresponding to the 4% of the known about the Universe, and 96% of the unknown. Filled in pages are fragmented and at the beginning of the book just like our collective knowledge of any subject is fragmented and missing. Estimate of 500,000 mark bits. 

Knowledge helps us see, understand the state of our being and ultimately Be in Reality. Currently all that is known in the Universe, neutrons, protons, and electrons that make up everything we can see accounts for only about 4% of the mass and energy of the Universe. About 70% of the Universe is what is dark energy; about 26% is dark matter, and this 96% is unknown. All that humanity has ever discovered and learned accounts for 4% of the Universe. There is 96% that we know that we do not know. How much more is there that we do not know that we do not know? Is our consciousness not complex enough to see the unknown even though we are staring at the answers? Knowing the unknown is incomparably much more real than not knowing at all.

Each day draws a number of marks equal to the number of days alive (17,354, 17,355, etc) on plexiglass. What pattern will appear? Will there be a pattern where marks clump up together or are absent. Who are we if we repeat ourselves, can we repeat or are we slightly different every day? Does our past, our memories appear differently to us daily as it marges with the previous layers? ......

Liquid charcoal on paper

Universe is a wall size installation mosaicked by the small textured charcoal drawings. The mosaicked installation is in the shape of an oval resembling the current imagery of the Cosmic Background Radiation and Map of the visible Universe. One small drawing has two minuscule figures drawn, practically invisible, symbolizing humanity. The figures are independently looking down. There is no order to the drawing tiles, hence every time the piece is installed it is in different random order and visually different.

The process: Liquid charcoal and water are applied first onto the paper. Charcoal pencil is used at the end to emphasize already created textures. The charcoal creates textures by following the paper’s surface texture and water, accumulating more or less in different areas, resulting in 3D implied visual space. There is a correlation between the drawing creation process and that of the visible Universe. Superficially looking, paper and water are an invisible and insignificant part of the drawing, considering that we observe and are interested in a drawing's appearance and not the surface it is on. However, the blank paper and water are an invisible scaffolding that dictates where the charcoal will collect, consequently the appearance of the drawing at the end. The Universe is mostly made of Dark Energy (71.4%) and Dark Matter (24%), which has a strong influence on its structure and evolution, and affects the universe on the largest scales. Dark matter is invisible (it does not interact with the electromagnetic field) yet determines the structure, just like paper does. Water mysteriously forces charcoal matter to move and collect, causing it to spread/expand. 

Individual pieces of the Universe are installed randomly each time the piece is installed resulting in a different configuration of the apparent Universe.

Meaning: Humans are practically infinitesimal specs, as shown with the insignificantly miniscule drawing of human figures among large-scale pieces. Figures are looking down, introspecting their own melancholy, not interacting nor looking at the vastness of the space around them. Intricate textures of the charcoal drawings symbolizes the complexity of all that the visible universe is composed of. 

Drawing and prints each: h100” x w100”

Paper, mixed media

Process: After completing 100 drawings of flowers, 10” x 10” each. After the completion, all 100 drawings are photo documented and the originals are cut into 1 x 1 cm squares, a total of 40,000. Cut pieces are randomly reassembled back onto one hundred 10” x 10” pieces. The Giclee prints are printed of the original 100 flower drawings which are then installed on the wall next to the cut pieces. For 40,000 there are 2.1x10166,713 possible rearrangement possibilities (40,000 factorial which is 21 followed by the 166,712 zeros).

What is the difference between determinism versus indeterminism and how is it expressed in reality? On the most fundamental level the world is made out of randomness, uncertainty, which, through interactions, causes the deterministic reality. Are randomly assembled small drawing pieces going to create new patterns, containing all together a new meaning? Is the world no more than absolute randomness with the human mind assigning the deterministic patterns to it? Is determinism nothing more than a human way of making sense of reality? 

If we have the information of the specific recognizable imagery, flowers, but presented in random bits (cut drawings and randomly reassembled) would we visually be recreating the familiar patterns, creating new patterns, or would we only see randomness? Would randomness create wave patterns and clumps of more and less material, or would it be even? What is the state of disorder, the entropy, and order? How do we perceive order versus disorder?

170” x 41”

Pen on paper 

Process: Draw one million bricks. 

The piece: What is One million? 

John von Neumann was a Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, engineer and polymath. “How can we make something of long duration from parts that are very short lived? How something that is perfect could be constructed out of imperfect components? This is the basis of living systems.” 

Any individual mark, in this case about 1/8”, carries its own imperfection. Any of one million marks would be invisible by itself, insignificant. Nevertheless, one million of insignificant imperfections, together as a whole, give rise to the massive wall (the part and the whole are rectangular in shape).

String and Marker on Paper

h40.25” x w41.25”

Process: String is randomly dropped 100 times onto the paper and traced with pencil. The traced line is covered with the dot marks. Approximately 90,000 marks.

Interpretation: Randomly determined waves dictate the individual marks localization. The more waves accumulate, the more interference patterns appear. From randomness to determinism. Once the interaction between string, paper and gravity happens, all the random possibilities result in an interference pattern. Observing an individual mark (particle) has a determinate, definite value, an eigenstate. Additionally, the piece’s process evokes de Broglie-Bohm theory, a deterministic interpretation of quantum mechanics where point-like particles are guided by a wave function, as well as the interference patterns of the double slit experiment. 

The Art Interpretation: Individual marks follow strictly the random path. As individuals we follow strictly predetermined parts yet they are as random as any other ones. The more random paths there are, the more we cross and interfere. Essentially, we choose to live our, seemingly particular, lives yet our paths interfere leading us to the same or similar paths of beliefs, reasoning, and life choices. Randomness forms individualism which through interference results in deterministic herd-thinking/behavior. 

Dual interpretation: Art does not mimic nature but is an integral part of it, that has a power to interpret and perceive correlations within and of Nature as a whole, without narrowing view to the particular parts of Nature. A good physicist does the same. Art and Science interfere resulting in the same path of trying to understand the Universe. 

45”x45”

Paper

Randomly stipple through two separate papers with the needle until the pattern emerges. Random patterns are determined by connecting the pierced dots with pencil lines. This is just one interpretation out of infinity combinations. The second paper is left blank for others to interpret and make their own patterns. The piece is installed on the window. Depending on the conditions; light source (indoor or outdoor), day, night, cloudy, sunny, etc. the drawing will appear different depending on the amount and intensity of the light passing through the paper or being blocked by the paper. 

-The paper with pre-drawn pattern lines strongly suggests the particular patterns to the viewer who will unquestionably accept them as the only option, as unequivocal truth. Even though there are q-numbers of possible patterns we will recognize and see only the predrawn one as the “pattern of truth”, the only possible one. It took the creativity of Marie Curie, Boltzmann, Maxwell, Einstein, De Broglie, etc. to see new patterns within the predetermined ones. 

- When faced with the blank paper, how are we going to interpret it and which points will we connect into the patterns?

- Identity or the state of something is never definite; nothing is the way it is because IT IS, but because of the context and interactions with all the other states it is interacting with.  Identity is ever changing and never permanent, just like the see through drawing changing depending on light, viewer’s position, time of the day, etc. 

Each of 100 panels is 19" x 19"

Pencil on paper

Process: Each of 100 panels is filed with portraits drawn by web of layered lines, erasing, and rebuilding them with more layering. Each portrait defines another. Each panel is drawn individually. Each panel is part of the whole piece and only perceived as such. Just like we are shaped by those around us, we are part of the group, and groups create the whole of humanity.

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Watercolor and pencil on paper
12"x5" each

Total of 17,260 drawings of children. Based on the UNICEF fact: An estimated 6.3 million children under 15 years of age die, or 17,260 per day, or 1 every 5 seconds, mostly of preventable causes, according to mortality estimates released by UNICEF, the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Population Division and the World Bank Group.

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h8” x w5” each 
.13 rapidograph on paper

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Approximately 1300 bricks total

Paper, prints, and wood stain

Site specific Installation

Some bricks state an atrocity committed throughout all of the humanity.

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Each capsule is dated matching the medicine taken on that date.
Empty medicine capsules, pen, and paper.

9” x 6”, book thickness 60”

Ink, watercolor, pencil, charcoal on paper Process: The book of 10,000 things, the book of all, contains 4 sections, 2500 drawings each: plants, stones, animals (including humans), and places.

The Piece: The book is a collection of perceptions, of the world, of being in the world.

Pencil on paper

h68”xw30”

The number of marks on each drawing represents the number of births and deaths per day globally.

353,015 births

155,520 deaths

New installation,

Ink, watercolor, and pencil on paper 
h75”x w36.5”

Pen on glass

h16” x w16”

Each side of the glass respectively contains the number of marks equal to the days in each of my parents’ life.

23703

21436

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h54"x w84" each of two

Pencil on paper

In the first drawing, bits of information, in this case melancholic portraits, create peacefulness and tranquility of the entire image. Portraits vary from 1mm to 1cm in size. Anything that exists, reality, only exists by the virtue of the mutual information it shares with other objects in the Universe, as information theory explains. Each bit/portrait defines and shapes the space of the other. Collectively, bits define the whole, yet when observing the entire image the well defined bits become unperceivable. Just the same, when observing the bits a tranquil perception of the entire imagery is not perceivable any longer. Even if the bit defines the whole, a bit is unlike the whole. In the second drawing, portraits are blank. The space for information is present, but the information itself is not. Even though the information within the space is unknown, it is blank, the entirety of the image is fully comprehensible. How do we perceive the space of the missing information within the bits? Do we project previously perceived portraits, or are we capable of creating new perceptions? How different, if any, is our perception of the whole depending on our knowledge of the parts? By knowing a bit can we automatically claim the knowledge of the whole? 55,000 portraits and 95,000 blank portraits; there is more of the unknown then of the known.

~230,000 bricks
Paper, gesso, wood stain
h60” x w90”

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Approximately 1300 bricks total

Paper, prints, and wood stain

Site specific Installation

Some bricks state an atrocity committed throughout all of the humanity.

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Part of Knowledge Shorts project is based on promoting and distribution of knowledge shorts. For example giving away Knowledge Shorts to passers by along the Magnificent Mile (shopping district in Chicago).

Begenings, 2012

Coloring pencils and paper were given daily, for a year, to a kid from 9 months of age (first moment of being able to hold a pencil).

Book of Marks

Book of Marks

Calendar, 2005 Pen on paper h68” x w2” each of 365, installation w76’ or 912” Process: At the end of each day draw a constant line on 68” (personal height) long paper. Mark the date on the top. The piece: A line is a direct expression of an inner energy, energy that defines an entire mental state of the given moment. A line expresses the most fundamental energy/thought which words can never capture. This formal aspect of a line/mark is the most truthful documentation of energy through and for all time.

pen on paper

h1” x w1”

The average square inch (6.5 cm²) of skin holds more than 1,000 nerve endings.

In a 1” x 1” accordion style book, 1,000 lines are drawn (25” long).

Watercolors on paper

h5” x w3.5”

Human heart beats about 100,000 times in one day and about 35 million times in a year. During an average lifetime, the human heart will beat more than 2.5 billion times.

100,000 dot marks are drawn on 5” x 3.5” accordion style book. Book format corresponds the average heart size. 

Pencil on paper

h8,5” x w8.5”

In humans there are about 200 different types of cells. 

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Pencil on paper

h68” x w30”

Human heart beats about 100,000 times in one day and about 35 million times in a year. During an average lifetime, the human heart will beat more than 2.5 billion times.

100,000 dot marks are drawn on 5” x 3.5” accordion style book. Book format corresponds the average heart size. 

Detail

Pencil on paper

h68”xw30”

 he number of marks on each drawing represents the number of births and deaths per day globally.

353,015 births

155,520 deaths

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12” x 150”

Pen on paper

Process: An average brain size of 167 mm (6.574”) by 93 mm (3.661”) is a space filed with a continuous thoughts, daily, for 227 days, from conception to birth of my daughter. Each new day’s text is shifted 20mm from the beginning of the previous day, thus resulting in overlapping.

The piece is a documentation of reasoning, thinking, and feeling while experiencing life as carrying within itself another life. The piece's process follows perception of self-existence while being unified with another being. What happens with cognition, reasoning, and self perceptions?

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Pen on paper

h8.5” x w9” each of 227

Process: Portrait drawing is made daily for 227 days, from conception to birth.

The piece: With each day noticeable morphological changes happen, which is documented through portraits. 

Ink, watercolor, pencil, charcoal on paper

h6 x w9”, book thickness 40”

The piece: The book of 10,000 things, the book of all, contains 4 sections: plants, stones, animals (including humans), and places. A collection of perceptions, of the world, of being in the world.

18’ x 46.5”

Mechanical pencil on paper

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Pencil on paper

Each h70” x w14”, drawing h67” x w10”

While fasting for a week a ‘fill-in’ drawing is made: format reflects the physical body height.

Ink, watercolor, and pencil on paper

36.5” x 75” (drawing height matches personal height)

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Pencil on paper

Personal height 68” x 26,5”

Each row is approximately 16th of an inch.

Filled-in drawing while reminiscing on past experiences. 

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Pencil on paper

Each of 30 drawings 68”x11”

Copious lines that turn into portrait are drawn daily for 30 days.

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Pencil on paper

30x4 pieces, each one h5” x w5”

Process: A set of marks is drawn simultaneously with both hands on two pieces of paper while perceptually focusing only on the right hand, the same rules with the same set of marks is repeated but this time the perceptual focus is only on the left hand, 30 different sets of marks are repeated using the same rules.

The piece: Study of the physical ability based on perceptual focus.

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Scratches on plexiglass

24” x 18”

The number of scratched marks on the plexiglas represents the exact number of days I have been alive. Just like the plexiglass, we are practically invisible, see-through, until daily life experiences leave visible scars that shape us, materializing us into concreteness.

Charcoal fingerprints on paper not sprayedwith fixative

Each h1”x w1”

Process: A fingerprint was made for each day of my life. Viewers are encouraged to take one fingerprint from the pile.

Pen on glass

h16” x w16”

Each side of the glass respectively contains the number of marks equal to the days in each of my parents’ life.

23703

21436

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Pencil on paper

Book format

Process :  A continuous pencil drawing was made while reading each book.

Raymond Queneau, Pierrot Mon Ami, Louis Ferdinand Celin, Castle to Castle, Rene Crevel, My body and I, Arthur Schopenhauer, Essays and Aphorisms, Jose Saramago, Seeing, Reiner Maria Rilke, Auguste Rodin, Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis, Henri Michaux, Stroke by Stroke, Leon Lederman, The God Particle, Rory Stewart, The Places in Between, Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus, James Lord, A Giacometti portrait, Jose Saramago, Death with Interruptions, Victor Pelevin, 4 by Pelevin, Joseph LeDoux, Synaptic Self, How Our Brains become who we are, Victor Pelevin, Babylon, Boris Vian, Blues for a Black Cat and Other Stories, Patrick Wall, Pain: The Science of Suffering, Naguib Mahfouz The Journeu of Ibn Fattouma, Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science

Pen on paper

h8.5” x w10.25”

Intention: Each day fill-in one piece of paper for 100 days with circular pen marks.

Result: Most of the pages are only partly filled.

Desire and aspiration is always greater than self’s capability.

Pen on paper

14” x 8.5”

Process: From the sunrise (i.e. 4:57am) to the sunset (i.e. 8:46pm) …… would write continuously its thoughts, feelings, beliefs, perceptions and apperceptions. The book is written in thirty days where each new day of writing is a new paragraph. Thirty days/paragraphs reflect ……’s age : ……’s handwriting is undecipherable. The entire book of ALL is unreadable.

The piece : Words are used to communicate thoughts and feelings but an individual’s thoughts and feelings cannot be understood by others. Thoughts and feelings, which are fundamentally a Self-Being, are understood only by the one who is experiencing them at that particular moment (personal present experiences). No one will ever hear, see, nor understand another one’s thoughts/feelings. No one will ever know another one’s Self-Being. To communicate is a useless and pointless noise. The only conscious is a self consciousness.

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Is Physical Reality, the experienced reality, the only real reality? What about Mind-independent Reality? Just because 100 years ago we did not know of the existence of the Dark Matter it doesn’t mean that it did not exist. Obviously the galaxies held together then just as well as today. Earth keeps spinning, with no interruptions, for dinosaurs, flat-earth-bolivars, as well as for those who have basic knowledge in astronomy and physics. How many more things hold our Reality together yet there is no consciousness to perceive it. Reality is mind-independent yet no less real. Is the blank paper ignored, less real, or equally important to the filled in paper? Can we consider what we don’t see as much as what we do see?

nk, pencil, charcoal washes, charcoal, pastels, shellac on paper

Each drawing h11 x w8.5”

The weight of the drawings/paper corresponds to body weight.

Pencil on paper

Each h6” x w3.75”

Ink fingerprints on paper

h60” x w220” (18.3’)

Process: Mark with fingerprints the number of days alive.

The piece: As the most constant and truthful manifestation of identity, each fingerprint symbolizes a day of self-existence. Due to the medium and finger’s pressure during an execution, each fingerprint differs from all the other. Is there a constant and unchanging self? What is a true identity?

Format : Average brain length = 167 mm / 6.574”

Average brain height = 93 mm / 3.661”

Process : Fill-in daily one paper with thoughts for 9 months. If it takes nine months for human life to be created and be born, how much does one change, if any, within nine months as an adult. One’s cognitive perceptions/thoughts are a direct reflection of one’s innermost Being, for this reason observing one’s thoughts for nine months will produce an accurate picture of how much one’s true Being has changed, developed, or not. Do we just live, or are we living?

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Pen on paper

4” x 68” each of 30

Process: For each of 30 days draw a number of circles that equals the number of living days. Format reflects personal physical height.

The piece : Within each new day, one progresses through life by repetitious reliving of previous days. Perception of life changes each day (smaller/bigger drawing). Each day one adds a new circle to one’s existence but each new day is just another repetition, the same as all the previous ones. Perhaps this is the impossibility of self-change.

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Pen on paper
H 68" × W 82"

Process:Thoughts are written over and over on a two-inch-thick stack of paper. The hole (a head-like shape) has been formed by layers of written thoughts that have ripped through the paper due to the excessive repetition of the pen. The dugout, the ripped-out paper, is displayed on the floor in front of the piece, in that same head-like shape.

The self is what the self thinks. Thoughts create the self while the self creates thoughts.

4.5" × 10.5" × 9.5" 

Pen on paper

Process: With a pen, a hole-drawing of a figure has been carved through the entire book. The deeper the hole-drawing goes through the book, the smaller it becomes. On each page, a drawing of a different space is added with a pen. The spaces drawn are autobiographical. As the hole narrows toward the end, the drawing increasingly takes over the hole-drawing of the figure.

Life experiences shape, alter, and mold the self until it disappears.

40" × 26" × 2" 

Paper, pen and white ink 

Process: 9,819 doors, the number of days I have been alive, are drawn in white ink, or are dug out as hole-drawings. The hole-drawings appear and disappear randomly throughout the book, shaping the pen drawings in turn; the ink drawings shift from representational to abstract.

The piece: Each day presents a new door, with new possibilities and new challenges. Most of the time, we don't choose, or dare, to open the door (the ink-drawn doors) and step into a new experience. The doors we do open (the hole-drawn doors) lead only to further doors that must, in turn, be opened. The door we open today shapes and determines the doors presented to us tomorrow. Perhaps we never open the right one. Perhaps all doors are equal. Perhaps what matters isn't which door we choose, but how we handle what follows. 

h32" × w20" each of 6 

Paper, pen and ink 

Process: A hole, and a drawing in the shape of a figure, is carved and drawn through all six panels in a pen. On the reverse side of each panel, a different image incorporates a hole: crowd, birds, trees, rocks, books, and field, in that order. The panels hang in a row from the ceiling.

As we go through life on one side we are part of different states, while on the other side self is constant and unchanging, but the true self that connects both sides is an invisible hole that venishes as it goes through existence.

67" × 22" × 1" 

Mixed media

Process: A life-size hole-drawing of a figure is carved through an inch-thick stack of paper. On each dug out sheet, an image of figures is drawn. The hole-drawing of the figure hangs on the wall, while the small drawings are scattered throughout the surrounding space, each carrying a different narrative indicating a different thoughts and experiences that makes the being.

The inner states of Being: thoughts, experiences, ideas, beliefs, feelings, etc. spread outward, beyond space and time. The being itself is temporal and static.

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Details

Pencil on paper

The piece: The story of one’s life is fully understood and comprehended only by oneself. One’s autobiography will vanish together with one’s own existence. For everything/everyone other than oneself, the autobiography is just a pile of dusty words (where only few words may be recognized and even less understood). Even for the self, the autobiography vanishes in front of one’s own eyes (that which happened is just a dusty shredded memory). No matter what one does in one’s life one will never overcome being an unrecognizable/misunderstood pile of dusty words. One will never know the other. One will never know oneself.

2.25" × 1 mile (1,609 meters or 5,280 feet)

Mixed media

Process: The kilometer-long drawing represents every possible self, even though the viewer can perceive only a few portraits at any given moment. They all exist simultaneously, in a superposition of being, which we, the observer, collapse into a single state, a single impression of character, at a time. Our perceptual cognition has not yet evolved into a consciousness complex enough to comprehend the whole mile of portraits at once. Until it does, we must do the hard work of rewinding the reel in order to perceive them at all. How much, within and around us, remains unaware to us still?

Pen on paper 18.75' × 2.5' 

Process: Circles were drawn continuously for 30 hours.

The piece: The impossibility of creating a perfect circle mirrors the impossibility of creating a perfect self, an imperfect creation of an imperfect perfection. One carries an image of what the ideal self, the circle, ought to be, and may search an entire life for that fictional ideal. One repeats the self, hoping each new repetition will surpass the last, yet the further one goes, the more exhausted one becomes, and the further one drifts from the self (visible in the drawing's final hours). An imperfect self cannot create a perfect one

Pencil on paper 16.25' × 1.7' 

Process: A continuous line is drawn for 30 uninterrupted hours.

The piece: Through this focused, durational activity, the self becomes both observer and observed at once, one who experiences, and one who observes the experiencing self. How far can one extend the self across 30 hours?

Wall drawing (96 pieces) h5.7' × w5.5'; book h11" × w8.5" 

Pen on paper 

Process: Hairline pen marks fill in 96 sheets of paper that together form a single portrait, 5.7' × 5.5'. Copies of all 96 pieces are made, kept in order, and bound into a book displayed on a pedestal in front of the full portrait, so that both may be viewed together.

A whole is made of many pieces. Focusing on a single piece, one page of the book, reveals only an abstract image; focusing on the whole, we lose sight of the fine, individual marks it's built from. This is the fundamental human difficulty in perceiving either the self or others in their entirety, from their smallest pieces to their whole. Reality is a perceptual construct.

Pencil on paper

h67” x w23.25”

Pencil and charcoal on paper 

Each drawing 3.7" × 2.8"; box 68" long 

5,000 drawings depict things observed from the exact same spot, with every 1,000 made in a different physical or mental state: 1. Standard 2. Fasting 3. Sleep deprivation 4. Continuous 24hr 5. Time-limited (one-minute drawings). After completing 5,000 drawings, the full process is repeated once more, for 10,000 drawings in total.

The world around us is seen from the inside out. Reality is a construct of the mind. Perception of the world is shaped entirely by one's personal, physical, and mental state. How different is our perception across these different states? Does perception change when an experience is re-experienced? Through shifting physical and mental states, through the sheer number of things that had to be observed in a limited space, and through the constraints placed on the drawing method, an otherwise mundane act of observation is transformed into a personally enriched experience, seeing what had never been seen before, and perceiving familiar space in an entirely new way.

 Each of 4 pieces: 6" × length varies (approximately 50 feet each) 

Pencil on tracing paper

Process: Over four consecutive days, a line was drawn for every inhale and every exhale for a 20-hour span, followed by three hours of sleep after each 20-hour session.

Involuntary bodily functions, like breathing, are automatic and easily taken for granted. Becoming conscious of this automatism, the very thing keeping us alive, is to become conscious of life itself. The art process allowed life to be experienced in its purest form, free of disturbance.

Each of four drawings, 117" × 36" 

Pencil on paper

Process: Each drawing is made with the same number and type of pencils; three pencils. The first drawing is left blank, its three unused pencils placed beside it. The second uses only one pencil (the other two, along with the remainder of the first, are mounted on the wall to its right). The third uses two pencils (with the leftover stubs and the one still-unused pencil mounted alongside). The last uses all three (with their remaining stubs mounted beside it). Each drawing depicts a portrait.

One holds a certain total of potential, a given amount and kind of material, and may use none, some, or all of it, a choice directly reflected in one's self-actualization. How much, and how, one uses what is given determines what one becomes.

170" × 41" 

Pen on paper 

The piece: What is one million? Draw one million bricks. Awareness through experience.

John von Neumann, the Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, engineer, and polymath, asked: how can something of long duration be made from parts that are very short-lived? How can something perfect be constructed from imperfect components? This is the basis of living systems. Any individual mark, in this case, about ⅛", carries its own imperfection. Any single mark, out of one million, would be invisible on its own, insignificant. Yet one million insignificant imperfections, together as a whole, give rise to a massive wall (both the part and the whole are rectangular in shape).

14" × 12.5" × 9.5" 

Paper 

Process: One hole-drawing is made every minute, continuously, for 36 hours, from 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. 2,160 pages, one per minute.

h67" × w23.25" 

Pencil on paper

Process: The piece began as a spiraling circle, drawn in one continuous line for 40 hours. The paper's fixed format (its height matching my own) and mounting physical exhaustion caused the circle to deform and the line to break.

One is given a certain amount of potential. One may work tirelessly to develop and build the self, but at some point, one's own limitations are reached, just as the circle could expand no further, bound by the paper and by physical endurance. Yet to keep going past that limit, rather than stopping, one must become something other than what one has been, and so the line breaks and deforms. In self-development, the further one travels, the further one drifts from the self, so that the self might become more fully itself.

2" × 68", each of 365, Installation: 76' 

Pen on paper 

Process: At the end of each day, for 365 days, a continuous line is drawn on a 68" long sheet (matching my height), with the date marked at the top.

A single line, drawn this way, captures the mental and emotional state of a moment with striking accuracy. Its speed, pressure, and spacing shift with our state of mind, our thoughts, our emotions, variations far more telling than words could ever be. Used as a visual language, the line becomes the most truthful, most universal record of a being's state, across all time.

8.5" × 11" × 8.5" 

Mixed media 

Process: After creating a hole-drawing portrait on an 11-inch stack of paper, the same hole-drawing portrait is drawn continuously, for 24 hours, on a second 11-inch stack, its unfinished pages left blank.

Over a lifetime, one builds many images of who and what the self is. And yet, however hard we work, much of the self remains unexplored, unseen, left blank.

w5.5" × d8.5" × h⅜" 

Pen on paper 

Book 1: Marks are drawn on every page, as though writing. 

Book 2: The exact number of marks used in Book 1 is drawn across every outer surface of Book 2.

The piece: One's identity can be seen by examining its individual elements closely, much like reading a book, where each letter and word carries its own meaning, or by merging all those elements into a single whole, rather than its individual pieces. Viewed as a whole, one senses the overall energy contained within, but loses sight of the individual pieces that built it (Book 2). Viewed only in pieces, one loses the sense of its totality (Book 1). Only by holding both views at once can one arrive at a full and complete picture of the self.

Each panel h9" × w7" 

Wood, bricks, house paint 

Process: Parts of houses were broken off with a hammer. The broken-off pieces are glued to a white wood panel. Beneath each panel is the address of the house the piece was taken from.

h21" × w17" 

Bottles, wire, dirt 

Process: Each bottle contains dirt collected from a different grave. Above each bottle is a number representing that person's year of death.

Dimensions variable 

Bricks, pencil, black wall 

Process: A used brick, collected after a demolition, is traced onto a black wall with white pencil. The brick is then crushed into pieces and piled in front of the traced drawing.

Detail

Each drawing h9" × w12" 

Installation: h96" × w81" 

Paper, ink, house paint, book 

Process: After reading one page of a book, that page is painted black. A drawing is then made from memory of what was read. This continues until the entire book is black; at the end, all the drawings are painted black as well. The drawings are installed in a grid, with the black book placed at their center.

Anything experienced, in this case, reading a book, is transformed by the self. Physically, text is a static arrangement of letters, yet its meaning admits infinite interpretation. With each new reading, the text becomes something other than what it was, or perhaps even what it was intended to be. Any text carries as much meaning as its blank or blackened pages, given that all that remains after experiencing a book is one's own self-projection. Through personal interpretation, the text is transfigured into the drawings, and the drawings, in turn, are altered, personalized interpretations of their own.

h68" × w63", each shape h68" × w30" 

Black wall, incised lines 

Process: The number of lines incised into the wall on the right-hand shape equals the number of days I have been alive; the left-hand shape, the number of nights. The height of each shape matches my own. Every day, we leave a physical trace that shapes us into who we are.

Detail

Each w10" × d12" × h floor to ceiling 

Brick, tracing paper, pencil 

Process: Draw a brick, then break part of it with a hammer. Make a drawing of the remaining brick, and a separate drawing of the broken-off part. Repeat until no brick remains. On the left are drawings of the broken parts; on the right, drawings of the brick. Beneath the drawings on the left are the actual broken pieces; beneath those on the right, the final remaining fragment of the destroyed brick.

The piece: Mirror is a documentation of destruction and creation. Destruction is a mirror reflection of life, as one side diminishes matter, the other accumulates it. For creation to happen, destruction must occur.

12" × 18" 

Paper, pencil, ink, house paint, enamel 

Process: Each page of the book shows a drawing of a figure reading, or looking at, a page of the book, the very page the figure is looking at is the book's next page (so the figure looks at itself looking at the book, seeing itself as it will appear on the following page). As the book progresses, the drawings of the figure grow darker, until, at the end, the figure turns fully black and disappears into the background.

Version 1

h9" × w5", each of 1,440 

Paper, pencil 

Process: A linear field is scribbled on paper every minute, for 24 hours. Do we observe the individual minutes, each drawing, or time as a whole, the entire installation? Does physical endurance affect cognition? Can one remain aware of every individual moment?

Detail

Detail

h7" × w11" 

Paper, ink, video 

Process: While drawing the moon, a video is shot of the eye, once looking up at the moon, once looking down at the paper while drawing it. The two projections, one of the eye observing the moon and the other observing the drawing, are shown above and below the drawing itself. Through observation, one interprets things, and in doing so assigns them meaning and understanding. Regardless of an object's physical reality, one's interpretation is always shaped by the projection of the self. Things are never simply as we see them, they are only ever as the mind constructs them. The observer imposes conditions on the nature of the object, producing a reality distinct from whatever existed independently. The perception that follows observation is little more than confused thought.

Process: 9,364 simplified, line-like figures are drawn in a book, the number of days I had been alive. The entire piece was made continuously, without stopping, over a total of 22 hours. Each page is marked, at the bottom, with the time it was completed. As the pages progress, the figures grow smaller and more simplified. Durational drawing offers a chance to experience the entirety of a life within a single moment, in this case, a moment spanning 22 hours.

h68" × w3" 

Paper, pencil 

Process: 9,351 figures are drawn, the number of days I have been alive. The format matches my height.

Each day of our lives, we become someone new, shaped by our experiences.

Each 20½" × 9½" 

Paper, ink 

Process: The number of marks used in each of 7 drawings of a hand is counted and displayed beneath the corresponding drawing. Total marks: 35,655.

Each 10" × 10". Installation: 60" × 60" 

Paper, ink 

Process: The number of marks used in each of 25 portrait-like drawings is counted and displayed above the corresponding drawing. Total marks for the entire piece: 57,722.

The piece: This mechanical, repetitive drawing process expresses quantity within both the one and the whole. Each portrait is simply a quantity of information, of marks, from which it was built. yet in the end, it exists only as part of a larger whole, a number folded into a larger number. Perhaps humanity functions the same way.

25 = 57,722 = 9,300 + 6,500 + 1,650 + 935 + 1,600 + 950 + 720 + 1,075 + 1,368 + 1,700 + 785 + 1,080 + 4,400 + 3,843 + 2,814 + 682 + 3,608 + 519 + 1,221 + 1,555 + 1,667 + 1,472 + 350 + 5,661 + 2,267

9¼" × 11" × 9" 

Paper, pen 

Process: An oval drawing, the size of a head, is drawn in pen on a 9¼" stack of paper, repeated over and over until the paper tears through, continuing down to the bottom of the stack.

The drawing exists not as a 2D illusion of three-dimensional space, but as a 3D negative space made positive. A hole always is a space within something else, defining what something is by defining what it is not. Building what we are not may be the way we come to create what we are.

Self-Portrait I, 2001 

9¼" × 11" × 8.5" 

Paper, pen 

Process: An oval drawing, the size of a head, is drawn in pen on a 9¼" stack of paper, repeated over and over until the paper tears through, continuing down to the bottom of the stack.

A hole is, in this sense, a fictional construct; always a space within something else, defining what something is by defining what it is not. Perhaps the invisible part, the part that is missing, is what defines the self. Building what we are not may be the way we come to create what we are.

Self Among Others, 2002

h70" x w40”

Paper, charcoal, latex paint

h20" × w15", each 

Paper, pen 

Process: A single continuous-line drawing is made for each of the following:

Train ride. Duration: 1 hour.

Views through the window. Duration: 10,000 seconds.

One neighborhood. Duration: 10 miles.

One house. Duration: 5 hours.

Car ride. Duration: 67 miles.

h45" × w25" 

Paper, pen 

Process: A continuous spiral line is drawn from the center of the page with a single pen until it runs out of ink. One pen equals 17.5 hours.

6" × 1" × 3" 

Paper, pen 

Process: A signature is inscribed over and over with heavy pen pressure until a one-inch hole is worn through the paper. 4 hours.

14" × 9" × 2" 

Paper, pen 

Process: 100,000 signatures are drawn, wearing a hole through the paper stack.

12" × 3" × 1" 

Paper, pen 

Process: The first page is covered with signatures. Signing continues, page after page, until the pen digs all the way through a one-inch stack of paper, forming a smooth transition between the hole at the top and the first page.

Here, a 2D drawing merges with a 3D one. A signature is the ultimate reflection of the self, more so than a physical self-portrait, which reflects only its appearance. The self is created by the self, through endless re-creation of itself: repeating the self until it becomes a new self, free of its superfluous former selves, repeating the signature until a hole is made. That hole carries a new identity, even though it was made by the same signature, over and over.

13" × 10" × 4" 

Paper, pen 

Process: A portrait-like hole-drawing is made in pen on a bound stack of paper, its top placed at the bottom. The excavated paper is installed beside the resulting book-portrait, and viewers are invited to look through the book itself.

To see is to look. To realize is to interact.

26" × 18" × 2"

Pen on paper 

Process: A continuous stream of thought is written for 24 hours, layer upon layer, until all the thoughts merge together, forming a hole.

3" × 68", each of 3 

Paper, pen 

Process: The drawing is made in a single unbroken session, with no awareness of time, until exhaustion; 25 hours. The drawing's length matches my own height.

The making of each of the 282 figures becomes a moment unto itself, rather than time being an external perception.

11" × 12" × 0.5", each of 5 

Tracing paper, pen 

The integration of drawing with hole-drawing.

h3" × w3" × L68" 

Paper, pen 

Process: Draw figures on a 3” tall stack of paper. Gradually the drawing transitions into the 3D hole drawing in the middle of the stack, and transitions back into the 2D drawing at the opposing end.  

Superficial existence transitioning into realizing layers of the digged out unknowns just to go back to the comfortable surface.

Paper, pen

The piece: Self among self: self's power over self: fullest existence (tallest stack of paper 15").

Self among others: one of many: self's inexistence (thinnest stack of paper ¾").

11.5" × 11.5" × 0.5" 

Paper, pen 

Process: A hole-drawing of a self-portrait is drawn in a book. Each subsequent drawing follows and is determined by the original hole made by the first hole-drawing. Total 25 drawings. 

In every moment, one is the sum of all past and future moments. The past shapes the decisions and outcomes of the future.