“I stepped in front of my own projection and my flesh became the screen.”
Testing a homemade projector. iPhone still in camera mode. Light hit my body. Complete collapse: I was simultaneously the camera capturing me, the hand holding the phone, the apparatus casting the image, and the skin receiving it. All four positions at once. No separation. Never was.
The Pattern Beneath Everything
This forced recognition I'd been avoiding for 20 years.
Binary opposition methodology—find what gets privileged, identify what it defines against, measure what happens when hierarchy collapses. Same framework operating across everything: corporate analytics measuring algorithm inversions, physical making measuring cultural inversions, all running identical analytical structure beneath conscious awareness.
The projection proved it. The methodology had been unified all along.
"This forced recognition I'd been avoiding for 20 years."
Revelation-Based Making
Materials insisted on assembly before purpose became clear. Wooden speaker, counting marbles from child's busy board, projector, iPhone components sat in workshop demanding attention without intellectual justification. Hands knew the configuration before mind could articulate why.
Recognition doesn't precede making. Recognition crystallizes through making.
Ideas arrive seeking construction. Materials reveal conceptual frameworks rather than receiving predetermined meanings.
Modular housing with visible construction
Counting marbles from salvaged busy board
Complete portable projection system
Ryobi ONE+ 18V battery, 4-6 hour runtime
Materials: Plywood housing, wooden Bluetooth speaker, pico projector, iPhone projection source, twelve wooden counting marbles (salvaged from child's busy board), gorilla tripod mount, Ryobi ONE+ 18V battery
Dimensions: 58cm × 22cm × 18cm (compact configuration, expands for use)
Power: Ryobi ONE+ 18V battery providing 4-6 hour runtime
Built: August 2024
Status: Fully operational. Primary function (methodological recognition) complete. Secondary uses continuing: portable projection system, workshop music player, time announcer.
Context in Series
Origin piece establishing methodology for entire Cornered Optimism arc.
Twelve works measuring complicity, powerlessness, and continuation through functional apparatus. Each piece operates as measurement instrument proving concepts through operation rather than symbolizing them.
This documents one maker's positioned observation from specific location and methodology—not universal creative mechanism.