and dark with good and evil probably goes back to the beginning of our ability to conceive of good and evil. As diurnal creatures with nocturnal enemies, we rely on our eyes and fear the dark. But there might be more to it than that.”
The video switches to a brain scan side-by-side with a night vision image of a person watching a dark room.
“This is a live, interactive performance piece I did at MOMA for a week. On the left is the activity in the visitor’s brain. On the right…”
I jump as, on the screen, a black cloaked figure steps out of a corner. I hadn’t seen it.
“…is a video of the visitor in a dark room. That’s me in the black cloak. The room is perfectly dark. A white noise machine is running. The visitors could neither see nor hear me. And I should point out that I also avoided wearing any fragrance. But watch what happens on the brain scan as I move closer. And watch her face.”
The woman grows more agitated as Margot moves closer. Her eyes seem to know where to look.
“You can see how the part of her brain responsible for processing visual stimuli is working hard, despite the fact that there is no visual stimuli. This is her watching darkness. But then look over here.”
Another portion of the brain begins to activate.
“She reported being able to ‘feel’ my presence. Here I move away, and you can see the activity reduce. The thing is, no one knows exactly what that part of the brain does, but it’s behaving very similarly to the sensory processing sections. Here’s the oddest thing, though, I swear that as her brain activity ramped up, when she reported being able to feel me, I could also feel her.”
The segment ends on her most technical, impressive, beautiful, and terrifying work yet. A dark hologram. Instead of light being refracted to create a seemingly three-dimensional object of solid light, it’s refracted away to create a space of solid darkness.
“Light never destroys shadow, it simply moves it, sometimes traps it. Think about it. If you illuminate the top of an object, the shadow moves beneath. Illuminate the top and bottom and it moves to the sides, or to the points of connection to the floor. Oh, but suspend the object, illuminate all sides. There, you’ve beat the shadow, right? Then what’s outside the boundary of the lights? Our existence is light-based, and being narcissistic, we imagine light being dominant. We like to think of light as destroying the darkness. But there is far more darkness than light, there’s far more empty space than stars, and all that light can do is shift the dark around a bit.
“But this shadow goes one further. This shadow moves light. This shadow can only be extinguished by darkness.” The lights go out on the video, and as promised, the shadow hologram disappears. The living room goes dark with it, and panic rises up in me as I scan the corners of the room. Then the preview of the next episode of Art 21 plays, and the light from the television chases the shadows back to the corners.
I settle the television on some classic sitcom reruns to give my brain space to process what I’ve just seen. I marvel at how deeply Margot Johnson has gone into the subject, and wonder if she, too, suffers from night terrors. I’ve had them my entire life, yet the deepest I’ve ever examined them is with the Nightmare Man comics I created before my balls dropped. She’s doing the work I should be.
My thoughts slow. The sitcoms slide by, slide away.
* * *
My eyes snap open. I sit up and stare around the room. This is not my bedroom. TV. Sofas. Bubbling aquarium.
Somewhere out of sight, a shadow stirs. I roll off the sofa and land in a snarling crouch.
The nightmare man is after Logan. I’m after the nightmare man. Down the hall to Madison’s room.
Gripping each side of the doorway like a man about to hurl himself from a plane, I take in the scene. Shannon and Logan sleep, though Logan has begun to whimper and twitch. The nightmare man
The video switches to a brain scan side-by-side with a night vision image of a person watching a dark room.
“This is a live, interactive performance piece I did at MOMA for a week. On the left is the activity in the visitor’s brain. On the right…”
I jump as, on the screen, a black cloaked figure steps out of a corner. I hadn’t seen it.
“…is a video of the visitor in a dark room. That’s me in the black cloak. The room is perfectly dark. A white noise machine is running. The visitors could neither see nor hear me. And I should point out that I also avoided wearing any fragrance. But watch what happens on the brain scan as I move closer. And watch her face.”
The woman grows more agitated as Margot moves closer. Her eyes seem to know where to look.
“You can see how the part of her brain responsible for processing visual stimuli is working hard, despite the fact that there is no visual stimuli. This is her watching darkness. But then look over here.”
Another portion of the brain begins to activate.
“She reported being able to ‘feel’ my presence. Here I move away, and you can see the activity reduce. The thing is, no one knows exactly what that part of the brain does, but it’s behaving very similarly to the sensory processing sections. Here’s the oddest thing, though, I swear that as her brain activity ramped up, when she reported being able to feel me, I could also feel her.”
The segment ends on her most technical, impressive, beautiful, and terrifying work yet. A dark hologram. Instead of light being refracted to create a seemingly three-dimensional object of solid light, it’s refracted away to create a space of solid darkness.
“Light never destroys shadow, it simply moves it, sometimes traps it. Think about it. If you illuminate the top of an object, the shadow moves beneath. Illuminate the top and bottom and it moves to the sides, or to the points of connection to the floor. Oh, but suspend the object, illuminate all sides. There, you’ve beat the shadow, right? Then what’s outside the boundary of the lights? Our existence is light-based, and being narcissistic, we imagine light being dominant. We like to think of light as destroying the darkness. But there is far more darkness than light, there’s far more empty space than stars, and all that light can do is shift the dark around a bit.
“But this shadow goes one further. This shadow moves light. This shadow can only be extinguished by darkness.” The lights go out on the video, and as promised, the shadow hologram disappears. The living room goes dark with it, and panic rises up in me as I scan the corners of the room. Then the preview of the next episode of Art 21 plays, and the light from the television chases the shadows back to the corners.
I settle the television on some classic sitcom reruns to give my brain space to process what I’ve just seen. I marvel at how deeply Margot Johnson has gone into the subject, and wonder if she, too, suffers from night terrors. I’ve had them my entire life, yet the deepest I’ve ever examined them is with the Nightmare Man comics I created before my balls dropped. She’s doing the work I should be.
My thoughts slow. The sitcoms slide by, slide away.
* * *
My eyes snap open. I sit up and stare around the room. This is not my bedroom. TV. Sofas. Bubbling aquarium.
Somewhere out of sight, a shadow stirs. I roll off the sofa and land in a snarling crouch.
The nightmare man is after Logan. I’m after the nightmare man. Down the hall to Madison’s room.
Gripping each side of the doorway like a man about to hurl himself from a plane, I take in the scene. Shannon and Logan sleep, though Logan has begun to whimper and twitch. The nightmare man
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