Jesse Byerly: PORTALS

PORTALS is a photo and light-based installation that seeks to reorient one’s experience of the world. Mirroring the Earth’s sphere, circular “portals” offer images of our environment. The portals range in content from macro landscapes taken at Yellowstone to micro details of everyday life such as shoelaces. As the colors slowly change, different aspects of the images are emphasized, blurring the distinction between what is natural and what is constructed. This synergy mirrors the world as people know it in the Anthropocene: a geological time period wherein humans are the dominant influence on the environment. Small pieces of trash are just as integrated into the natural world as awe-inducing landscapes. Each image acts as a portal to a new way of viewing the world’s vastness and minutia, but, most importantly, a human’s place amongst it all.