The Idea

The initial idea was simple – I want to build something in the desert in 2020. The No. 1 rule of all is: I need to make sure I can actually pull it off. So, keep it as simple as I can manage. I like woodworking and I like the ancient Chinese geography concept “Round Sky and Square Earth” (appeared at least two thousand years ago), so I sketched up the initial design shown above. This also reminds me of an interesting and weird (in my opinion) artwork I saw at MoMA PS1 – when people get into my cube and look up: the sky will be indeed rounded – any additional meanings? Nope, people have their own feelings – could be nothing or something.

The manner in which the I Ching tends to look upon reality seems to disfavor our causalistic procedures. The moment under actual observation appears to the ancient Chinese view more of a chance hit than a clearly defined result of concurring causal chain processes. The matter of interest seems to be the configuration formed by chance events in the moment of observation, and not at all the hypothetical reasons that seemingly account for the coincidence.

Foreword to the “I Ching” translation by Richard Wilhelm
by Carl Gustav Jung

I then bought the “I Ching” translation by Richard Wilhelm and really liked the Forward by Carl Jung. As another “coincidence” – I got the book on Oct. 4th, 2019 and the theme of Burning Man 2020 came out on Oct. 15th, 2019, which is MULTIVERSE!!! I am still learning more about I Ching and try to incorporate more concepts into the interactive device I am designing for the cube: check it out here.