James Turrell

 “I’m also interested in the sense of presence of space; that is space where you feel a presence, almost an entity — that physical feeling and power that space can give."

“My work has no object, no image and no focus. With no object, no image and no focus, what are you looking at? You are looking at you looking. What is important to me is to create an experience of wordless thought.”

I interpret this as he intends for viewers to briefly experience nirvana, which I imagine is very successfully achieved in Perceptual Cells. A kind of innate self awareness without the self. A cosmic giggle. I'd also therefore deduce that the entity he describes is 'god' itself or variations of the word, 'being' 'is-ness' 'love' etc. It's the overdone concept of the psychedelic experience without all of the naff bits.

Hyperallergic article on Perceptual Cells here.

A guardian article mentions that 'he advocates slow art.' Which resonates with me wanting to create works that have a longer 'consumption time' that aren't just to be looked at but to be an experience, an event, something that is happening and existing in correlation with time passing.

He talks of 'self selection' in regards specifically to his Gugenheim installation as people that didn't want to sit in a slightly darkened room for more than ten minutes to experience the work to it's full potential, were never going to be capable of having the intended experience - one which is deeply personal and unique yet also undeniably universal and connected. He also describes viewers needing to 'submit' to the work to be able to 'enter the realm created by the artist' which is so inextricably linked to taking psychedelics I wonder if he is trying to suggest that he is God? He is the maker? Yet he discusses how all light is natural light and he doesn't make it because light is made by burning natural resources, so nature makes it. You'd think I'm on drugs right now but I'm 9 months clean today and now I have a headache.