A SILVER CORD


L's sculpture, A Silver Cord, is an actualization of a metallic cable that individuals see connecting their astral body to their physical body while floating in the Astral Plane during an out-of-body experience (OBE). It is thought that this tether is a life line, and that if severed during an OBE, the cosmic traveller will die. Some see the cord extending out of their head or from multiple points on the body, while the majority witness it originating from their core near the heart. The silver cord can be found in modern and ancient firsthand accounts of astral projection experiences, spanning all geographies and socio-political conditions.

This sculpture is a continuation of L's longstanding methodological practice of fulfilling esoteric beliefs, legends, and folklore. The action of physicalizing the silver cord enables the viewer to experience and observe the archetypal form in a terrestrial state, while unsurfacing affinities of materiality with our primitive consciousness and ancient notions of the soul.

Intersecting a wall that divides the gallery, the work appears in both rooms as an identical form: a mirror polished stainless steel rod extending from the wall several feet, floating on a perpendicular plane at the height of the core of the viewer. The sculpture was fabricated by a Los Angeles aerospace facility that is a contractor for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which was founded in the 60’s by the astral-projecting occultist Jack Parsons.