C.G. Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, 1944

Research and writings about suicide point to more questions than answers. Although considered a taboo in most cultures, all societies somehow keep track of the number of suicides and the methodologies employed. The range of classifications is extensive and much statistical analysis is devoted to decoding this human experience. In the United States, the rate of adolescent suicide has quadrupled from 1950 to 1995 (National Center for Health Statistics, 1995). Other countries are not immune. A study of 34 of the wealthiest countries in the world found that there were 15,555 reported suicides of people ages 15 to 24 in 1996. The study concludes with the following, "The units of analysis in this study are not individuals but countries. Causality can not be determined for the reported associations." (Johnson et al., Suicide Among Adolescents and Young Adults: A Cross-National Comparison of 34 Countries, 2000)

While pondering the nature of this experience I was struck by the endless volume of dry yet disturbing statistics. The rigorous statistical analysis and "weighted estimates" left me wondering whether they will ever have any usefulness in relieving one moment of one person's pain or in preventing one suicide, as is their stated goal. Analysis of Momentary Structures is a personal meditation on the mysteries of the psyche that lead us to suicide, and the ever present statistics that this potent experience is being reduced to in a world needing a rational answer, for what it considers an irrational act.

The work takes its title from a type of statistical analysis used to correlate childhood stress and cognitive processes that could potentially lead to someone committing suicide. In this installation, the fragile and luminous soap bubble, reminiscent of youth and innocence, is brought against the camera lens, acting as an observing mirror and an ultimate limit. The bubbles emerge from the dark inner chamber of a simple black box, a "bubble machine." They emerge towards the camera, much as unconscious material emerges from our psyche, propelled from the darkness that is an interior mechanism. Here images of soap bubbles floating and shimmering in the light, some of them eventually destroying themselves against the camera lens as others float by unscathed, are superimposed on computer generated images of minimal surface structures of soap bubbles along with suicide statistics from a database in real time. The rupture of the soap bubbles reveals the mathematical minimal structures and statistics, which in turn give way to more soap bubbles. As the real soap bubbles float to their "destiny", they encounter their mathematical, statistical counterparts, which have been used to attempt to "understand" their essence. The collision results in both rupture and transcendence, as all three, the soap bubbles, the computer generated minimal surface structures emulating soap bubbles and the statistical analyses, are all momentary structures. As the images surface on to the screen, they are accompanied by sounds generated from brain wave patterns, reiterating the surfacing of unconscious aspects of psyche in to our physical awareness.

Participants enter a semi-darkened space containing a circular projection screen, 4 feet in diameter, and mounted 30 inches off the ground. A circular black draping is 6 inches from the screen, surrounding it. Underneath the screen is a bubble making apparatus, a video camera and a light source. Projection on to the screen is from an overhead, ceiling mounted projector.

An oversized bubble wand, reminiscent of those used in childhood, is attached to the supportive stand for the screen. The bubble wand is composed of a responsive surface, such that when viewers blow on to its surface, it causes the increased production of bubbles, which then speeds the process of the "surfacing" of the statistics and minimal surface structure images. The more bubbles they decide to create, the faster the images on the screen appear.

In this work, a mediated experience of soap bubbles bursting is played against the physical experience of the bubbles that floated by, delaying their dissolution. The mediation creates a sense of immediacy, a sense that what is on the screen is real, and yet is superceded by the immediacy of the physical, for the bubbles will eventually burst against some surface (a human hand, or simply dehydrate and burst in mid air) as is the nature of the existence of soap bubbles. This is one way in which the video and computer technologies in this work reflect the questions posed in the work. The statistics used to decode the essence of suicide seem as if they are "real" but they give way to the immediacy of the physical and have yet to fully reveal it's nature. They are but a reflection, an observation and a mirroring back of an expression of the psyche. Similarly, the video camera is placed as both observing mirror and a field of potentiality in this work. It is the surface upon which the rupture of the soap bubbles occurs, it observes the process and reflects it to us from a unique point of view.

It is his or her point of view that the participant/viewer is asked to choose in this work. By increasing the flow of bubbles, and consequently the speed at which the images surface in the projection, they are actually creating a need to choose which aspects they will focus upon. At the upper limits of the system, so many bubbles are generated that the viewers focus is drawn more towards the physical aspects of the soap bubbles than on to the projection surface. By adjusting the production of bubbles, the viewer finds their own balance of focal point. They may choose to balance between the mediated experience and the physical one, or focus more on one or the other. This aspect puts the viewer in the position of choosing how much of which they want to "see." The suicide statistics raise a disturbing subject. It is juxtaposed against the soap bubble as a metaphor that evokes innocence and youth along with fragility and being borne along by the "winds of fate." The piece asks on one level, "Do you really want to see this?" As Hillman writes, "Any careful consideration of life entails reflections of death, and the confrontation with reality means facing mortality. We never come fully to grips with life until we are willing to wrestle with death." Analysis of Momentary Structures asks the viewer to come into close proximity with humanity's attempts to scientifically demystify the nature of suicide and consequently the nature of our existence, and raises questions as to the value of this approach.

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Brakke, Ken. Surface Evolver software program author.

Susquehanna University, Mathematics Department, Selinsgrove, PA.

www. susqu.edu/brakke/evolver/examples/examples.htm

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