2023

Mexican Motion in Parallax Multiverses

Artist Residency and Exhibition Casu Lu Sur, Mexico City

Installation 2023 Casa Lu Sur, Mexico City

'This project was made possible by the Australian Government's Regional Arts Fund, which supports the arts in regional and remote Australia’.

#rantarts #regionalartsfund

Our Eyes Adjust to the Dark. We like to think of this parallel to what we know—Only bigger. In Tracey K. Smith's "Life on Mars," she touches on this idea. When looking out of a moving car window, why do close objects appear to move backward while distant objects seem to move forward? Objects that are closer to us appear to move more quickly than those far away, such as clouds, creating the illusion that they are moving in the opposite direction. This happens because our eyes perceive the relative motion of objects in our field of vision rather than their absolute motion. Motion parallax refers to how our eyes and brains process visual information. Parallax is the observed displacement of an object caused by a change in the observer's point of view—every split second causes a split in the present moment.

My work takes the perspective from inside a car window to the outside, where everything appears transparent. Windows help reduce glare and heat, making the interior more comfortable and private. The windscreen can also be seen as a metaphor for life, both personal and professional. It's important to know what is behind us to learn from where we have been. The windscreen is much larger than the rearview mirror because we need to keep looking ahead and have the clearest view possible of where we are going and what we want to achieve in life. We are connected to the past while looking to the future. I am transitioning through time and landscape, through dark matter. With this spatial distance comes connection, and the scale of transformation is massive.

Mexican Motion in Parallax Multiverses parallels our world through mobility. I am transported through streets, skies, and freeways, navigating translation, maps, culture, conversions, and adjusting to scale, sounds, smells, air quality, textures, tastes, and newer technologies—it's a planetary phenomenon encompassing its costs, risks, and safety. As I traverse this new world of change, this land and its people, life continues to exist, but differently than before. People are displaced yet move forward regardless. While the structure is the same, everything feels different from both the inside and the outside. Our connection to the soil, its value, and its wealth is crucial. I now observe through popular culture and communicate through an app. The real value of the world lies in where everything interacts. The planet is becoming conscious, with everything bouncing off everything else. The transformation of human consciousness is a self-regulatory complex system in which organic and inorganic matter interact to co-produce the conditions necessary for life on Earth.

James Joyce claimed that humans often fail to fully utilize their two eyes, leading to a lack of depth perception. However, when both eyes work in conjunction, when two points of view are superimposed, we experience a fuller, more truthful vision of life. In deep Mexico, all the dark matter we have constructed is set to be reimagined. Life wants to live—just as in "Jurassic Park."

©donnalougher2026