Iqra Dada

ENGL 175
Sherrier
The Infinity Machine
A response to the exhibit by Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller

When I entered The Infinity Machine, I was disoriented. I had come from
a bright, sunny day to a pitch-black room. I used my phone to guide me to the
entrance of the actual exhibit, and I had to wait a few minutes for my eyes to
dilate and adjust to the lack of lighting. I came with two of my closest friends,
Gwen and Pronoma, from high school. We used this experience as an excuse to
meet up and spend some time together. I was in a bubbly mood: happy that I
could share a few moments with people I really care about. We were chatty
before we came in, but became silent as soon as we stepped into the dark room.
The woman at the front explained to us that we should not give off any additional
light, because it would interfere with the lights in the exhibit. We agreed and put
our phones away, then stepped inside.
There were mirrorshundreds of themhanging from a central location in
the ceiling. They were in all different shapes and sizes, some bigger than me and
some smaller than a quarter. Some were old fashioned and looked extremely
heavy, and others were more simplistic with just a regular frame, like something
youd buy from Target for your dorm room. They were all turned at different
angles, to reflect light off each other, I suppose. Along with the mirrors, there
were lights hanging. The room was dark and the only light was coming from
these tiny lights that were being reflected off hundreds of mirrors. The whole thing
looked sort of in disarray, but beautiful all the same. Then, it started moving.
There was an eerie whirring noise when this happened, and I jumped a little bit
out of surprise. The entire fixture in the ceiling rotated, and the mirrors on my side
of the room floated around to Gwens. And the mirrors on Pronomas side floated
around to me. It got faster and faster, the noise increasing, the light rays moving,
flitting around the room, unable to decide where they are meant to point. Finally, it
slowed to a slightly screeching stop, and the lights shook for a moment back into

their original places, wavered for a moment, and then stood still again, as though
nothing had happened.
Im not a huge fan of art, but I wanted to share this specific experience
because it was breathtaking and so meaningful. I saw my reflection in so many
mirrors from so many different angles, and I felt like I could interpret this work in
any way I wanted. Right now, Im deciding what I want to do with my life, my
career, and how I want to change the world, so when I experienced The Infinity
Machine, I saw the spinning as my confusion, my visiting of many options, my
exploration of the world and what it has to offer me and what I have to offer it.
And when I saw my face reflected in all the different mirrors as they floated and
swung past, I thought of all the different people I could be: a scientist, a lawyer, a
social worker, and executive of a non-profit, a CEO of a startup, a mother, a
teacher, etc. A lot of thoughts came to me and I started to wonder who I am and
why I matter.
I did not realize what the sounds meant at the time, but as we walked out
and I started wondering how the piece was exemplary of Modernism, I looked
down at the brochure and squinted to read that the sounds were of solar winds
hitting the magnetic fields of the planets in our galaxy. They are from recordings
from outer space that The Voyager brought back to Earth. This helped me to truly
understand what Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller were doing with this
piece. It embodies all the questions asked by Modernist Art by questioning where
we are in infinity (the world), what that means to us, and why we matter. It asks
so many questions by simply asking the person looking at it to see who they are
and where they are in the greater universe. The light and reflections allow a
person to look at the exhibit and see themselves in so many ways and almost
require them to question themselves and what it means to be who they are.