For the sound sculpture "Shattered Perceptions", I shattered two panes of glass and saved the central web shape of the shatters.

I arranged the pieces of one of the shatters like a mobile, so that they spiraled round and still created a web shatter shape when looked at from the right angle.

I arranged the second shatter on another unbroken pane of glass, as a relief of glass on glass. On the back of the pane of glass I fixed an acetate print of a haiku I had written.

 

"Looking through window;

my perception shatters it

and me in pieces."

 

I wrote this haiku whilst recovering from being run over. I started writing haiku and researching Japanese culture. The Buddhism and meditative discipline in Japanese culture seems to seep into their creativity, and I found that haiku and origami gave me a focus that was therapeutic and aided my healing.

The second shatter was placed underneath the mobile of the first shatter, on top of a white plinth inside which a speaker and mini-disc player were hidden.

The sound is a soundscape I created from samples recorded while I broke the pane of glass. The viewer can look through the shattered pieces of glass, through the window at the street, and examine the everyday street in a different way.

The intention of this piece is to gently encourage the viewer to investigate their perception of the world they see through the window. I find the separation of a pane of glass and how it affects our interaction with what is on the other side very interesting. Sometimes it feels as if the world we see through the window is playing on a tv screen, not reality. Being behind a pane of glass presents us with possibilities of voyeurism and dislocation from what is right in front of us.

Exhibited at Contemporary Gallery, Queens Road, Brighton, May 2005.