Through the use biofeedback mechanisms, Involution explores questions related to mereology, or the relationship of parts to wholes. As the constituent elements of the body are to the individual, so the individual is to the group, with the nature of scale being not a fixed but floating signifier, this piece suggests. Three participants sit around a mirrored, round table with a large, concave disk suspended above. Each rests his hand on a galvanic skin response monitor and endeavors to slow the frequency of the cicada chirps (audible to the group) which correspond to his respective heart rate. Once one participant has achieved this goal, lowering the number of chirps below a certain threshold (also made visible by a needle gauge), the sound of a cat purr becomes audible. This sound entrains the other participants until each has brought their heart rate under the threshold, whereupon the purr is replaced by a recording of Brian Eno’s instrumental composition “Becalmed.” Triggered simultaneously, and projected from within the base of the table onto the concave disk overhead, is a video image of trained pigeons in flight. As the flock wheels above the image is reflected in the mirrored table below and the group finds itself suspended between the two gyres, grounded in an immaterial body of indefinite size and form.
