If/Then

If/Then was an installation at the former Block Art Space in Sacramento, CA. It was assembled from spent light bulbs discovered at a defunct poultry farm where hundreds of used light bulbs were stored in boxes and abandoned as discards at a rural property estate sale.

The bulbs were used at the poultry farm to increase the production of eggs by keeping the chickens in a continuous condition of artificial light.

This conceptual framework led the installation in a number of interesting directions. Viewers frequently referred to a suggestion of eggs—translucent fish eggs, permeable and gestational. The reference was not a planned, but rather seemed to develop out of the forms and the use of multiples. The assembled bulbs were under-lit creating a sense of embryonic life forms. The bed-like structure added a sense of intimacy and seclusion. In an adjoining room, the bulbs, formed into clusters, were suspended by a cable from the ceiling onto a transparent acrylic disk precariously balancing in the middle of the room. The rooms were softly lighted, suggesting a counter-point to the enforced lighting of their past lives.