Synopsis
Deep West Mesa revisits the conditions preceding the split of technics from religion by simulating a return to the archaic period when the figure-ground distinction was only just developing—where certain places and moments (a peak, a gorge, a passage) first began to emerge as concentrated expressions of forces from the background continuum, but were not yet fully severed from the ground or its inhabitants.
The VR piece is assembled from scraped satellite terrain and field recordings gathered on the volcanic escarpment and aeolian plain west of Albuquerque, where petroglyphs dating back as far as 2000 B.C. remain visible today.
Brain activity and other physiological metrics drive environmental shifts, while threshold events are triggered by focused calm or heightened arousal. By these mechanisms, a more intimate subject-object loop is established, and privileged points can only be approached by approximating the ritualistic states of contemplative composure (vigil, silence, purification) or ecstatic arousal (dance, ordeal, intoxication).
This project extends the conceptual investigations of earlier immersive works.
Deep West Mesa (IN PROGRESS)
VR / biofeedback environment
Technical Development
The participant wears a Muse S headband beneath a PC-tethered Meta Quest 3. EEG and other biofeedback data streams are routed into Unity, where they modulate atmosphere, light, environmental density, and signal-gated passages.
Current development stage: Hardware integration established, testing signal mappings.
The environmental design employs a data scraping technique, developed for Venus in the Blind Spot, where terrain is captured from the arcs of a rotating Google Maps satellite view, then passed through a chain of conversion programs before entering the game engine. The resulting artifacts are preserved as part of the work’s material condition. For Deep West Mesa, this technique is redirected from autobiographical geography toward speculative site reconstruction. Field recordings, reference images, and surface documentation sourced first-hand from the West Mesa escarpment supply the environment’s sounds and textures, while the archaic record and conceptual frame shape its organization.
Background Research
The project is grounded in Petroglyphs National Monument: a basalt-capped landscape shaped by volcanic activity, escarpment erosion, windblown sand, and a deep history of human passage and inscription.
Primary references:
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The body as already entangled with the field it perceives (Merleau-Ponty)
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Biofeedback as a cybernetic mechanism; κυβερνήτης (Weiner, Bateson, Plato)
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The individuation of form out of a pre-individual field (Simondon)
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Wonder before the world and attention as self-emptying at the threshold (Heschel, Weil)
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Central New Mexico's geological and archeological record
The historical frame remains intentionally general. Deep West Mesa does not attempt to reconstruct a specific people, ceremony, or belief system, nor does it depict the later Pueblo communities whose spiritual relation to the escarpment remains ongoing. Instead, it approaches the archaic mode as a perceptual experience structured around seasonal inhabitation, marked terrain, and the emergence of charged places within a landscape not yet organized by modern separations between object, environment, instrument, and sign.
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