Reflection is a collaborative installation which will be shown, in different forms, in two venues: In Spring 2012 it will form the core of a festival at Peterborough Cathedral in the UK. In the fall, it is projected to be a part of an arts festival at WCSU in Danbury, CT. This festival is a celebration of the Dalai Lama's visit to WCSU. The installation itself will consist of integrated music and art works, created in tandem, using methods we have developed over the last 5 years.

The audio is deployed in this way: Individual pieces of music will be heard via infrared headphones which will pick up different pieces depending on what particular work the viewer is actually facing. The notion of reflection is further carried out in the imitative counterpoint of the musical works.

One of the wall reliefs, Desertmusic, is made from 800 pages of old sheet music, unwanted leftovers from an almost dead culture of chamber music performance in the home. It has been replaced by television and revolutions in music and electronics, which are available to people all over the globe. Like the new technologies we are finding to alleviate the world’s water problems, we have to give up some cherished concepts and look forward thoughtfully and compassionately to what will replace them.

More Reflections

* Poem by Shen Xiu and response by Hui Neng in Platform Sutra.

“The body is the tree of perfect wisdom,

The mind is the stand of a bright mirror.

At all times diligently wipe it.

Do not allow it to become dusty.”

--Shen Xiu

“Fundamentally perfect wisdom has no tree,

Nor has the bright mirror any stand.

Buddha-nature is forever pure and clear.

Where is there any dust?

The mind is the tree of perfect wisdom.

The body is the stand of a bright mirror.

The bright mirror is originally clear and pure.

Where has it been defiled by any dust?”

--Hui Neng

* "The reflection is neither inside nor outside of the mirror, and thus 'things are freed of their "thing-ness", their isolation, without being deprived of their form; they are divested of their materiality without being dissolved.'" Atamsaka Sutra, attrib. Nagarjuna