Beyond the Horizon: The Sacred and the Profane, Reassembled (2023)

cyanotypes on canvas [thesis]

This thesis builds on the idea of antennas that connect the earth to the ether, re-articulating the direct and intimate relationship between the human body and the architecture through a series of conjoined domes, with an emphasis on how the ritual of migrating from the edges to the center could hold a meaning that is much more sensuous and sacred than mere displacement.

Beyond the Horizon questions how unearthing the notion of looking above can inform spatial conditions that suggest a state of lifting off the ground and floating. By placing such soft structures footsteps away, there would be a condition that forces these antennas into grayness, the half-lit state which encapsulates the becoming of tangled beauty - a disruptive architectural move that forces most rituals to conclude in the center.

I explore the implications of creating a theater that is hanging above and its ability to bridge the gap between human desires and how deeply rooted they are in transience. It introduces a sense of lightness and detachment from the physical world into the ethereal. This thesis places the misbehaviors and commonalities in the gap between the “subtle” and the “spectacle” to craft spatial experiences that are not marked by walls and structures but by senses and movements.

What was once a flat image generated by AI is suddenly a sphere, and then a dome, then a lid that hangs above - a Hans Bellmer object, perhaps a gateway to heaven, an antenna, a circular mound. Beautifully put by William H. Gass, “Without plan or purpose we slide from substance to sensation, fact to feeling, all out becomes in, and we hear only exclamations of suspicious satisfaction: the ums, the ohs, the ahs.”

We forget that the notion of looking above is without purpose, a fetish of some sorts, a motion to navigate through the stars. We remember that things that are “just beyond the horizon” exist again, animating fictitious endless landscapes in our minds to delight. We are reminded that the crust of this complex spherical object that we live on is dressed from pole to pole in wetness, foliage, and uncertainty. For all intents and purposes, dome and home become one and the same, interchangeable, and dependent on our eagerness to spot fantastical meanings and symbols behind ordinary objects and rituals. They unfold a romanticized collective ritual that is shared between multiple congregations of worshipers.

They remind us that in spite of all of this emptiness, we find meaning in the grayness that marks its borders; where the blue ocean fades, where the atmosphere begins, where the hollowness of some objects becomes apparent, where the perimeter of our experience comes to a halt at the first sign of gray.

We stop floating aimlessly to cling onto the comfort of spotting a vague border to sing the song of lifting off the ground; tempo becomes movement, and melody becomes ritual, notes break down into glimpses and glances with blinks in between. The flatness above warps till it forms a dome, an enclosure, something much softer than it likes to appear.