You’re back again.
Only two installations into The Dot Philosophies exhibition and you have to admit, it’s getting a little bit addictive.
Something’s changing inside you.
Feelings of intrigue and excitement are rising up but a sense of calm and reason is bringing you back into balance. The thoughts that have been circling your mind over the past few days have been a little bit more philosophical than usual. And playfully so.
Your perspective is changing.
Shifts in your point of view are so subtle that you barely even notice them and yet the impact they’re having on how you see the world is bigger than you ever could have expected.
You’ve zoomed out of our existence to consider the vastness of humanity from above. You’re starting to pay attention to our significance en masse and yet the insignificance of our each and every momentary passing.
You come to see, and believe, that we really are just dots.
And yet with a colourful lens, those dots seem like magic skittles. Each one of them full of colour and flavour and life.
You stomp back up that winding staircase, greeted by familiar faces that nod out diligent good mornings and walk through the glass exhibition room doors.
Today you make a sharp left instead of a right and immediately there’s a white door in front of you.
You open it. You walk in. You close the door behind you.
If it weren’t for the dimly lit white canvas on the far wall, the room would be in total darkness. You squint your eyes to find a seat on the long wooden bench.
It’s eerily quiet until, after a minute or so, noise begins to crackle out of the speakers. Its loud and muffled and you can’t quite work out what it is at first. It sounds like shouting, but then you hear laughter too. And tears – you can definitely hear tears.
An aural symphony of chatter takes over the airwaves. It gets louder and louder and louder until you almost want to put your fingers in your ears.
And then it stops.
The room remains dark and the silence seems to overstay its welcome until a familiar silhouette outline of the seven continents and seven seas begins to appear on the screen.
Then, a minuscule red LED lightbulb, no larger than a pinhead, pierces its way through New York.
More and more of them begin to pierce their way through the brilliant white canvas and out into the dark. First one and then hundreds follow, then thousands. San Francisco, Sydney, then Hong Kong and Singapore.
Then a scattering of light makes its way to Europe and your eyes dart back to the centre of the map. One pin finds it’s way through London and within milliseconds London is burning. Then Paris and Berlin and Rome. Europe sets itself on fire with tiny crimson clusters.
And as time passes, the light of New York glows brighter and brighter, seducing your eyes with its temptress glow.
An idea, a thought, a trend, a feeling, a worry – it could be anything really.
It’s that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire
Malcom Gladwell