‘Reinventing the Prayer Wheel’ at the Rubin Museum Empowers Visitors (Review)

Examining an exhibition of interactive art, inspired by ancient Tibetan ritual 

Self-help experts say that an intention which is written down has more power than just a thought. You are forced to formulate it more carefully and reflect on it more thoroughly, which ultimately helps to figure out what you want and how to start moving towards it. This practice originates in religious traditions, including Tibetan Buddhism, where the mantras are written on scrolls and wrapped around the core of prayer wheels. An exhibition currently at the Rubin Museum called The Power of Intention: Reinventing the (Prayer) Wheel Rubin Museum, studies the phenomenon in depth and offers the visitors to solidify their own goals for the remainder of the year.         

Metamorphy. Photo courtesy of the artists.

   

Greeting the guests at the bottom of the spiral staircase in the lobby is an interactive installation, Wheel of Intentions (2019), created by Potion and Ben Rubin, and based on a concept by the Rubin Museum. It looks like an Apple-inspired version of an ancient prayer wheel: a solid, glossy cylinder reaching hip-height. A white top with a keyboard mounted on it glows with a prompt to type my intention using36 characters or fewer. After taking a minute to collect my thoughts, I type: “Learn to meditate.” After I’m done, with a spin of the wheel and a “whoosh” sound, my goal is flying up the spiral staircase, a sight equally exciting and inspiring.

I follow my visualized intention up to the 5th floor and find myself enveloped in two panoramic projection screens with other people’s intentions floating in the darkness. Some have pledged to “strive for success,” “stay in the present moment,” or “find a new path.” Some have chosen to focus on more earthly needs like “have a hot threesome” or “eat pizza.” The ever-moving swirl of anonymous intentions is reactivated every time anybody spins the wheel on the ground floor. This principle of activating your own resolution, as well as everyone else’s intentions on the digital “scroll,” is borrowed from the prayer wheel, a secret object conceptually deconstructed in the exhibition. Buddhists believe that with each turn of the wheel the mantras that it contains within are “read” and sent out into the world, making them more powerful.    

  

After my experience with Wheel of Intentions, I explore the rest of the exhibit. My visitor’s journey through The Power of Intention: Reinventing the (Prayer) Wheel takes me through five sections, each looking into a different aspect of the prayer wheel as a ritualistic object: intention and commitment, repetition, engagement, accumulation, and belief. Traditional prayer wheels of various designs are paired with the works of contemporary artists, enriching the perception of objects from both worlds. Some of the modern works run more contemplative but are engaging nonetheless. 

I dive into studying details of the intricate works of Youdhi Maharjan and get hypnotized by the ever-emerging Landscape of Belief (2012) by Monika Bravo. But perhaps the main showstoppers of the exhibition are two interactive installations: Breathless  (2012) by Alexandra Dementieva and Metamorphy (2014) by Gregory Lasserre and Anaïs met den Ancxt.

As much as it is pleasing visually, Breathless is confusing. It consists of two barrel-shaped sculptures made of “ribs” that light up whenever the key terms related to power and intention are used on the internet in real time. The source is unspecified in the description, which makes me doubt if the futuristic “tubes” are really connected to the World Wide Web and where the words like “ability,” “will,” “power,” “attempt,” and “release” come from before they appear on the display on top of the sculptures. As a word appears more frequently, more lights become active. The visitor can enter the sculpture and blow onto an anemometer which influences the illumination pattern and (as stated in the description) the art’s RSS feed. 

While the cumulative effect of people on the internet using a particular word is quite visible (more lights on the sculpture turn on), it is a little obscure how exactly the effort of a single individual ( embodied here in the breath) affects the power of the collective. “Blow it away!” yells one woman to her friend. “You are making it go away!” But why would somebody wish to blow away the word “ability”? We don’t necessarily know in which context the word is being used. Even after reading the description of Breathless thoroughly, I am still unsure about the effects my actions will have.

Metamorphy, on the other hand, was both visually stunning as well as a more fulfilling experience. The piece consists of a semi-transparent circular membrane which one can approach and activate by pushing the fabric of the membrane; I enjoyed both interacting with the art myself as well as watching other people doing it. Each touch by a visitor causes a colorful abstract projection pattern—reminiscent of mandala, a colorful geometric pattern representing the universe—to appear on its surface. The projection was paired with a deep electronic sound with each interaction. And thanks to a large mirror on the other side of the disc, the viewer could also see their reflection in the middle of the splash of color.  By taking an abstract and poetic approach (as opposed to literal and explicit), Metamorphy reflects on physical contact as a means to activate something. In the case of the prayer wheel, the spinning of the wheel ensures that the mantras are read somewhere “above.” But in the case of Metamorphy, the work of art only exists in the moment of interaction. In fact, interacting with the piece becomes a performance itself, the silent object turns into a living light-painting canvas and a musical instrument at the same time.

Before encountering the exhibit, I believed the topic of Tibetan prayer wheels to be highly specific and really a niche interest. What I found surprising at Reinventing the Prayer Wheel were the instructions embedded into the exhibits about how to work with your intentions to generate power: both within myself and my community. By setting up an “intention” upon entry, and then going through the exhibition and playing (mentally, or physically, or both) with the different mechanics” of prayer wheels, I inevitably picked up on methods of how to bring my own dreams to life: to set an intention, to commit, to engage repeatedly in a physical action, to accumulate others, and to believe. As for working on my personal intention, I downloaded an app for meditation immediately after I came home from the museum and am happy to report my inconsistent but steady progress.

(This review was published on NoProscenium.com on June 28th)