KĀRYN TAYLOR

It's All Relative

Room of Reality

Kāryn Taylor’s Room of Reality reminds me of what Duchamp once said about the fourth dimension. The idea of ‘dimensions’ first came about in the 1750s but it wasn’t until the 1880s that the notion of an ‘unseen’ distance could form a 4D cube known as a tesseract. 

What do we think of when we stare into the warm, soft geometric glow of Taylor’s Room of Reality? Duchamp’s The Large Glass is supposedly full of secret geometric relationships that may have speculated could be linked to a larger, mysterious system for his practice. Does Taylor impart the same kind of code?

Thinking about Room of Reality and dimensions cause me to wonder what they mean for today’s world. Fast forward through everything we know about the past century to this moment in 2022. The fourth dimension is fast being superimposed onto new and multi-faceted digital space. Virtual and augmented realities make 4D more than real as we experience exactly what Duchamp suggested, or perhaps foresaw.

* * *

Einstein, who bought us the theory of relativity, once said that if you look deep into nature you will understand everything better. I am thinking deeply about nature as I continue to stare into Room of Reality.

Below the suface of nature’s wild and unruly exterior is a highly organised system that can throw a fantastically organised shape at any given moment. Crisp fractals of snow fall from the sky, a perfect semi-circular rainbow beams across the horizon, a Fibonacci fern slowly unfurls on the side of the road. 

Geometric wonder is everywhere we look, already set to unfold from years of evolution and billions of atoms that know no other way but to bond in patterns. This might help us understand the way in which we are drawn to nature and the order of things.

* * *

We must expect great innovations to transform entire techniques of the arts, thereby affecting artistic innovation itself and perhaps even bringing about amazing change in our very notion of art. — Paul Valéry

I am imagining myself inside Taylor’s Room of Reality. There is a warm glow that could be from that final moment of sunset when your room fills with the last light of the day. There are straight lines that could be made by hand, computer or nature. Everything connects yet nothing forms and it all makes sense but is mysteriously coded at the same time. I see the way in which the Taylor has used technology, yet I see her hand in everything. In the Room of Reality all is relative, between art, science and nature. 

Essay by Chloe Geoghegan