Metagraphic artifacts

Every city chokes on signs: alphabetic, pictorial, explicit, implied. When the rover remains upon proscribed paths, such signs are embodied to the point of invisibility. An altered trajectory brings to force their semantic reality like a wall made from glass brick. And so “No Trespassing,” “No Entry,” “Violators will be prosecuted,” “Pedestrian traffic prohibited,” emerge as the valleys and gutters constraining urban movement, and pushing back, with concrete pulse, to the path. There are few constants in human cultural evolution. But one, perhaps, is the relation between the sacred and the forbidden. The sacred is radioactive, and thus forbidden, unless special ritual precautions ensure safety. And while the sacred may be threatening, it is also entrancing, translucent, seductive. Prohibition demands violation. When the sublime refuses to keep seduction’s promise, the nearly inevitable result is iconoclasm. However, even with material annihilation, buried beneath brick and iron, aura remains…as inescapable as solitude.

Images recorded before the demolition of the Phoenix Center in Pontiac, Michigan.

Summer 2025