Resonate Music and Arts Festival 2026

The concept of this piece is an artistic interpretation of our understanding of the mind. It was created with 4 layers of black netting to represent the conscious, subconscious, and higher mind.

The top layer is the higher mind. It is perfect and unattainable from our physical bodies. Sitting “above” us and acting like an arrow, pointing us in the direction of our greatest passions.

The layer of black netting immediately below represents the beginning of the subconscious. It is made with netting that has smaller holes than the lower sections, this is important later. Black yarn hangs from this highest level in an unpredictable pattern creating drooping sections.
The third layer down uses black netting with larger holes and various strands of black yarn hanging straight down. These strands hang through the lowest level of netting below.
The lowest level of netting also uses larger holes. On Friday morning of the festival I brought out yarn balls and initiated an interactive segment of the installation. People of all kinds were invited to throw yarn around and weave a tunnel between the two lowest levels of the black netting and rigging set up lower on the trees.

This yarn represents the conscious mind. It is something we can actively see and grasp and manipulate to our conscious will. In the same way the conscious mind requires the unconscious mind to support it, the yarn requires the black netting to support it. But the unconscious mind, like the black netting and yarn, is mysterious to the conscious mind. It is visible only in glimpses where we can see its vast depth and quiet workings momentarily. Its influence is clear, but you can never see the full unconscious at one time.

But the conscious mind can reach up into the layers of the unconscious, making permanent connections and pathways. To reach higher depths requires more effort and sometimes learned skill. The smaller holes on the upper netting of the subconscious prevents smaller yarn balls from passing through. Only smaller, more concise thoughts have a chance to penetrate. It is possible, but not without effort.

The subconscious has these many drooping and straight pieces hanging from the grid of the net, representing the many unknowable workings of the subconscious. It shifts between rigid predictability on one plane (the grid) and shifting, moving, wildly varying unpredictability (the yarn droops and hanging elements) which move in 3D space compared to the viewer. However everything operates in a way where it is all connected. We can feel the mechanistic workings of our unconscious, we can reach into it with our conscious mind and maybe define sections/pieces with certainty, but there will always be an ocean of the unseen still waiting for every single drop of certainty that we can hold in our hands.

Conscious thoughts (the fluorescent yarn) may be able to reach into the depths of the subconscious mind but can almost never truly reach the higher mind. We create this thing we call the mind and wrap it around ourselves to give delineation and separation – the fluorescent tunnel. It anchors in our subconscious which is driven by our higher mind.

But some pieces of the subconscious leak down (with the help and guidance of the higher mind, into the conscious mind where they just wait to be discovered. This was represented by the black strands of yarn hanging straight down. These are new passions, waiting to be discovered. Your conscious mind hasn’t quite caught up yet but your subconscious knows that these things really set your world on fire – in a good way. These strands were black and disappeared at night, so they needed to be discovered by luck, chance, or a caring friend. So as people come up to the piece they can pull on these black strands that connect to the subconscious and send ripples out through the unknowable mechanism. But these strands are fragile and must be treated with care. Too much of a good thing is always bad and breaks the connection with the higher mind. Attendees leaned slowly over the weekend just how hard they could pull without breaking that connection. Though few strands remained by the end, they were carefully used to enhance the enjoyment of all around.

The conscious mind has the ability to do something similar with the higher connections it’s made, so shaking the lowest yarn can cause some ripples in the upper levels as well, but not to quite the same degree. This left things for people to discover simultaneously within the installation and within themselves.

With the black, the effects appear and then disappear just as quickly into the night sky. Photos and videos will never do this type of piece justice because it cannot accurately portray the depth and movement at different levels. If you’ve ever had a moment of clarity and realization only to have it completely slip away, this is the feeling of watching the effects created by this piece.

“Mind Tunnel”

A collaboration with Laser Fox for Resonate Music and Arts Festival, held at Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park in Live Oak Florida.