An Iranian-born Swedish sculptor and former communist portrait painter drives through an endless plane stretched between the desolate and ancient walls of prehistoric Lake Bonneville, each mile rebounding on itself, mirages echoing off of each other and extending the straight highway line into the fractal heavens of dry heat. His mind hums along to “a hymn to our universe, whose glory and dimension is beyond all myth and imagination.” The waves of antimemory fluids flood and recede. Truth is left behind as the currents of mixed realities intertwine among the serendipitous salt flats. Season’s fold into geology’s creases and the concrete leaves of the tree of life settle in silt.
“And it came to pass after I beheld a tree, whose fruit was desirable to make one happy… And I beheld a rod of iron, and it extended along the bank of the river, and led to the tree by which I stood. And I also beheld a strait and narrow path, which came along by the rod of iron, even to the tree by which I stood; and it also led by the head of the fountain, unto a large and spacious field, as if it had been a world.” (Book of Mormon, 1 Nephi 8:10,19-20)
“And now, in that rise of masonry to which his eyes had been so irresistibly drawn, there appeared the outline of a titanic arch not unlike that which he thought he had glimpsed so long ago in that cave within a cave, on the far, unreal surface of the three-dimensional earth.” (H.P. Lovecraft, Through the Gates of the Silver Key)
Now oftentimes mistaken for a poorly disguised cell service tower or an homage to Mormon scripture, Momen’s Tree of Utah marks a rift between nature, technology, spirit, and time that emits sufficient energy to cause highway hazards and vehement online sightseeing reviews. Salt, mud, bones, street signs, refuse, and Amazon Prime trailers are the holy site’s most frequent visitors. Disparate realities of devotion to ritual and practice converge in moiré patterns of confusion.
An Iranian-born Swedish sculptor and former communist portrait painter drives through an endless plane stretched between the desolate and ancient walls of prehistoric Lake Bonneville, each mile rebounding on itself, mirages echoing off of each other and extending the straight highway line into the fractal heavens of dry heat. His mind hums along to “a hymn to our universe, whose glory and dimension is beyond all myth and imagination.” The waves of antimemory fluids flood and recede. Truth is left behind as the currents of mixed realities intertwine among the serendipitous salt flats. Season’s fold into geology’s creases and the concrete leaves of the tree of life settle in silt.
“And it came to pass after I beheld a tree, whose fruit was desirable to make one happy… And I beheld a rod of iron, and it extended along the bank of the river, and led to the tree by which I stood. And I also beheld a strait and narrow path, which came along by the rod of iron, even to the tree by which I stood; and it also led by the head of the fountain, unto a large and spacious field, as if it had been a world.” (Book of Mormon, 1 Nephi 8:10,19-20)
“And now, in that rise of masonry to which his eyes had been so irresistibly drawn, there appeared the outline of a titanic arch not unlike that which he thought he had glimpsed so long ago in that cave within a cave, on the far, unreal surface of the three-dimensional earth.” (H.P. Lovecraft, Through the Gates of the Silver Key)
Now oftentimes mistaken for a poorly disguised cell service tower or an homage to Mormon scripture, Momen’s Tree of Utah marks a rift between nature, technology, spirit, and time that emits sufficient energy to cause highway hazards and vehement online sightseeing reviews. Salt, mud, bones, street signs, refuse, and Amazon Prime trailers are the holy site’s most frequent visitors. Disparate realities of devotion to ritual and practice converge in moiré patterns of confusion.