Travis LeRoy Southworth, EXIT, 2013
Tom Estes, Portable Black Hole, 2012, Trinity Church: Image, Carlos Rigau
Mike Calway-Fagan, The Progression of Regression, 2010: Image, Carlos Rigau
Emmy Mikelson, Threshold Composition # 6, 2013
Darren Jones, Sight Specific, 2013
Alexandra Lerman, Release, 2013
Emmy Mikelson, Threshold Composition #1, 2013: Image, Carlos Rigau
Magnus Theirfelder, Lost Control, 2008: Image, Carlos Rigau
Jong Oh, Compo-site #3, 2013
James M. Stone and Xuening Bai, Dust to Dust, to Planets?, 2011
Emmy Mikelson, Threshold Composition #5, 2013: Image, Carlos Rigau
Alexandra Lerman, Release, 2013: Image, Carlos Rigau
Phenomena's Madina Stepanchenko preparing the museum space
Phenomena's Madina Stepanchenko preparing the museum space
Trinity Museum - Opening reception, Thursday, Nov. 14, 2013 - 5.30-8.30pm
Phenomena Project
Social Progress Through Contemporary Art
Exhibition
Superposition: Observing Realities
November 15th, 2013 - December 23rd, 2013, Trinity Museum, New York
Join us for the opening on Thursday, November 14th, 2013 from 5.30-8.30pm
Organized by Madina Stepanchenko, with Ryan Campbell and John W. Moody for Trinity Visual Arts.

Exhibition dates: November 15th - December 23rd, 2013
Trinity Museum inside Trinity Church, on Broadway at Wall Street.

Press release

One of the most common functions that humans perform is ‘looking’, but how often do we regard the extent to which this simple physiological gesture defines how we see and respond to the world? This exhibition offers meditations on the concept and practice of observation.

In quantum theory the ‘principle of superposition’ states that a physical system survives in all of its possible outcomes while it is not observed. In physicist Erwin Schrodinger’s famous example, a cat is placed in a sealed box with a vial of poison, and a radioactive source. If even a single atom decaying is detected by a radiation monitor, a device shatters the vial of poison and kills the cat. While the box remains unopened the cat can be considered both alive and dead. Only upon opening the box do we discover is the cat is alive or dead. The observation itself has to be seen as an action that determines the condition of the cat. It is that gesture that collapses all possibilities into one conclusion. We all observe the world around us, considering multiple possibilities. The act of observation determines in which state the world exists, and defines our reality.

Today our technological advancement has expanded our capacity for observation, from astronomers on the grandest scale, peering billions of years into the cosmic past, to scientists viewing matter on the sub-atomic level. Increasingly we observe the world through our screens, iphones and editing apps which allow us to present ourselves and environments as we prefer them to be seen. As our modes of observation evolve, new “currencies of seeing” alter our perceptions of reality.  

For artists - so often at the vanguard of noticing the changing complexion of humanity on a sociological spectrum - the act of observation can be considered their initial and primary medium.