Summary

This installation, like so many others, is outdoors. It cannot really be seen, for its primary object, will, if looked at directly, burn, damage, even ruin the eyes. You look, instead, around the place. You see that object, that light, reflected in others—on their skin, in their hair, like illuminated masks or veils. This, for some, is enough. For others, it causes only frustration. Wanting to get to the origin of this light, this heat, but unable, some will approach these others not as secondary and adequate sources of light, but instead as objects in the way. “Viewers” will, therefore, do one of two things: either they will admire one another, or they will seek to destroy one another. Meanwhile, the installation, the source, burns on, unseen. Julie Carr, Real Life: An Installation