"Voice of the City, Exhumed"
Sometimes a thrilling sense of chaos as intricacy arises when we experience several different systems of order directed toward diverse ends, all operating simultaneously in the same space, seemingly on top of one another.
This image of reflected construction projects in New York City provides an x-ray of this kind, evoking a precisionist urban chaos of the sort that Joseph Stella rendered radiant one hundred years back.
We're shown a see-through ant farm of human endeavor that, in itself, feels chaotic and yet satisfies our fascination in the same way that those old "Invisible Man" figures from my childhood did; with a cutaway view that recalls the architectural vivisections by Gordon Matta-Clark in the 1970s.
For me, this image also taps the joy and gloom of deep spaces, such as the convolving prison bowels imagined, in the 18th century, by Piranesi.
TITLE - "Voice of the City, Exhumed"
WHERE - New York City (2023)