The philosophical and scientific concept of “emergence” describes complexity arising from a combination of simpler parts or processes. In Emergence, two simple components – tiny beads and crochet thread – coalesce into twelve emergent forms. These ten-foot strands hang from the ceiling, moving with slow motorized rotation. Underneath each emergence lies a sand and bead sculpture, their forms inspired by NASA galaxy imagery – swirling spiral galaxies, diffuse elliptical galaxies, tendrils of a surrounding magnetic field. Upending our usual perception of the stars, we look down at these galaxies on the floor. Without a directional context, each bead strand may be perceived either as building from the galaxy, bottom-up, or dissolving into the galaxy, top-down.

Looking to the sand-bead galaxies as a frame of reference, we are giants among the stars. But isolating the bead strands, zooming in with our selective perception, we understand them as tiny objects. In this way, a sense of scale is upended – the tiny beads may be perceived as both stars and particles – as we undergo shifts in “aspect perception” as described by Ludwig Wittgenstein. In these perspective shifts from micro to macro, we may experience a sense of interconnectedness, a oneness, a collapsing of scale. Here at the human scale, sandwiched somewhere between the Planck length and the span of the universe, these dichotomous distances seem simultaneously tangible and unfathomable.

During the installation, I perform in the gallery space, crocheting a thirteenth emergence made of beads plucked from a spiral galaxy. I become an arm of the galaxy, shaping the emergent form like a gravitational pull. After crocheting about fourteen hours across four days, the thirteenth emergence measures five feet long.

Throughout the installation, a soundscape of beads, knitting needles, and crochet hooks fills the gallery. The music track evokes both the materials themselves, and something else – another emergence, greater than the sum of its parts. This recalls Pauline Oliveros’ “quantum listening,” or “listening to more than one reality simultaneously”. We are invited to hear both the raw craft work and an emergent meditative music, just as we may see a bead as both a particle and a star, a perspective both “focal and global. When both modes are utilized and balanced, there is connection with all that there is” (Oliveros, Quantum Listening).

A guided meditation and live music performance held within the installation space invited a feeling of oneness with all scales of the universe and a recognition that our complex lives, while seemingly small by one measure, are massive, powerful, and inextricably entwined.

Whether experienced as a live performance and meditation or as a self-guided encounter, Emergence invites a moment of contemplation for how all elements of our universe – from infinitesimally small to cosmically vast – overlap and shift in and out of our perception, but exist as one interconnected, unified whole. Each tiny crochet stitch, or atom, or action, or moment in time is an integral part of our universe.

Installation & Performance by Katrina Parker

Music by Clare Marie Nemanich & Nic Brannen

Guided Meditation by Taylor Donofrio

Documentation by Matthew David Roe & Katrina Parker

Installation Assistance by Matthew David Roe, Jules Hyun, Yixuan Tan, Chaska Jurado, Joshua Sassower, Pedro Verdin

Special thanks to Tom Leeser, Scott Benzel, Betzy Bromberg

Supported by the CalArts Student Union Grant