Numbers 23:23 (What hath God wrought!), 2018
Solar Studios at Rice University, Houston Tx

Created for The Ends of Our Index Fingers Are Mute at the Solar Studios, Numbers 23:23 (What hath God wrought!) turned the exhibition space into the sculpture. Each artist in the exhibition was given a container as a place to present work, instead of filling the space, Brown sealed it shut with a chain and padlock, closing off the interior and leaving visitors on the outside.

Inside, a smoke machine controlled by a programmable timer switches on and off in the rhythm of Morse code. The pattern spells out “What hath God wrought,” the message Samuel F. B. Morse sent in 1844 to open the American telegraph era. The phrase comes from the Book of Numbers, chapter 23, verse 23. As smoke fills the container, it seeps through the seams and gaps and rises into the air, so the sealed box appears to be sending a signal in the middle of the Rice University campus.

The piece drew the attention of many passersby who didn’t know it was an artwork. Over the course of the exhibition, police and the fire department were called to the site several times.

The work reflects on the unintended consequences of our efforts to solve problems. Powered by the sun and staged within a solar-energy research space, the container points to our search for clean, renewable energy, and to the way each fix tends to create a new problem. When we put out one fire, we often start another. Morse’s message, first sent as a marvel of human progress, becomes a question about what our inventions set in motion.

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