Far from being a precise and predictable world of objects and substance, it appears now that we inhabit a universe in constant flux, which is a web of interrelated events.

Eastern mystics have long known that cosmic space is not a void but weblike with everything connected through it, and that the basic nature of all things is change.

The oneness of the universe has been a revelation to modern physics.

Physicists now describe a ‘field’ where interactions take place at the quantum level. Events are ‘disturbances’ or fluctuations in the field, concentrations of energy that create patterns and structure. They only manifest into particles when measured or observed. There is no ‘reality’ until this point.

What both physicists and mystics agree is that the observer’s consciousness is always involved. The event is an interpretation by the observer filtered through the mode of perception used. This may be through our eyes or through scientific measuring devices but it seems nothing actually happens until it is observed (Google Schrödinger’s cat)

Quantum science is difficult to comprehend, logical reasoning seems to go out of the window and scientists have been reluctant to accept that fundamental laws are not involved any more, the building blocks they have built on have crumbled.

However they admit that reducing things down to their smallest parts has not provided answers. There is no longer any absolute certainty when you get to the essential nature of things. Subatomic particles do not exist with certainty at definite places, but show tendencies to exist in certain places in a complex web of relations.

The crucial feature of atomic physics is that the human observer is not only necessary to observe the properties of an object, but is necessary even to define these properties. In atomic physics, we cannot talk about the properties of an object as such. They are only meaningful in the context of the object’s interaction with the observer.

We are now talking participation instead of observation. There is entanglement among the consciousness of human beings (the observer) and the universe (the observed) when we observe the universe it responds to our observation.

This image is the first in a series where I explore these concepts by quite intuitively creating ambiguous constructs using natural forms and light. I create an energy knot and bring the disturbance into existence, emulating the process of reality coming into existence through my perception.

In a seemingly chaotic environment, I use the ‘parachute’ of milk thistle seed as a metaphor for the concentration of energy and the hole (where the seed was held) as a ‘portal’ through which blinding light is being emitted, I create uncertainty as to whether there is another dimension beyond. Maybe the seed has passed through from one life to another.

The ambiguity of the image defies any linear or logical reasoning, disturbs and provokes unconventional thought.

Zen Buddhists use a ‘Koan’ a paradoxical anecdote or riddle without a solution, to demonstrate the inadequacy of logical reasoning and provoke enlightenment.