'Neil Before Zod' is an interactive installation composed of four distinct sculptural experiences: ‘LEM/LAM’, ‘OSS One Small Steppe, ‘Clementine,’ and ‘Anteroom’. 

Each structure invites the individual viewer to access the 'information' contained within through differing modes of body posture (kneeling, leaning, riding upon a cart, etc.).

This work is an outgrowth of my research into the topic of high strangeness, fringe subjects, and conspiracies – in this case specifically relating to the Apollo lunar missions. During the course of this research I experienced a disorienting sense of intellectual uncertainty which began to creep into my daily thinking about official histories and the lingering sub-narratives that often co-exist with these- growing in their own dark corners of our fertile cultural landscape. As a recovering child of Catholicism, I was somehow familiar with this compartmentalization of seemingly incompatible ontologies and the resulting psychological displacements it produced within me.  I was a compelled to follow this artistic rabbit-hole and to attempt to translate this concept of malleable truths into a spatial, sculptural, architectonic installation work.      

The title is a play on the quote “Kneel Before Zod!”- a command uttered by iconic British actor Terrence Stamp in the ridiculous 1980s comic film ‘Superman 2.’

The first structure called 'LEM/LAM' is shaped like a long rectangular, scope-like tube supported by a balustrade and capped at each end by two kneeler/ viewports. Each viewport opens onto a scale model diorama enclosed within the tube structure. The dioramas appear to present an alternate history of the moon landings-one shrouded in religious overtones, occult symbolism, dark discoveries, and a faint trace of science.

This absurd motif is played out through the humorous, awkward, ritualistic physical interplay between participant and subject- yielding a blend of psychological and physical disorientation.

The first diorama at the LAM end of the structure consists of a gothic chapel lined with framed icons culled from the realms of space science and the occult which coexist in a liminal space of conflicting and antagonistic proximity. Behind the altar lies a wall of seeping flesh-like substance. Icons hang above the altar and depict:  Neil Armstrong (R), Neil Degrasse Tyson (L), and an entity summoned and drawn by Aleister Crowley called 'Lam' at (C).  The viewport is laced with frankincense oil for an additional layer of experience.

The opposite side of the tube at the LEM end of the structure shows an antique wood prospector’s cabin on the lunar surface. In the foreground lies a baroque portrait of a grinning Carl Sagan entombed in the lunar regolith. A flag of a flesh-like substance marks the site and identifies the nature of the expedition.

LEM is a NASA acronym for lunar excursion module.

The second structure called ‘OSS (One Small Steppe)’ is a vertically oriented and angled, padded niche containing a scale model diorama and audio track. This coffin-shaped structure requires the viewer to enter the niche and lean at a very slight angle to view the diorama within. This slight floor angle is a design nod to Neil Armstrong’s descent from the lunar lander. The vignette depicts an observation deck set within a lunar mining shaft which has encountered a flesh-like and ‘foreign’ substance growing within the tunnel. The substance is the same as in the church altar, and outpost flag. The audio track that loops within the installation is generally referred to as ‘The Halt Tape’. This open-source material was originally recorded by USAF Lt. Col. Charles I. Halt on Dec. 28th 1980 while investigating a real-time incident unfolding in the Rendelsham Forest in Suffolk, England in close proximity to the Joint USAF/RAF Bases of RAF Bentwaters & RAF Woodbridge. The tape recounts a frantic and desperate attempt by multiple USAF personnel sent within the forest to investigate and document a series of bewildering events being experienced at the joint bases.

The third structure in the installation is called 'Clementine’. Here the viewer is seated on a padded cart (whose shape mimics the rigid seating in the Apollo spacecraft) and self-propelled into a padded 'cockpit' niche into which a diorama vignette is positioned above their head.

A looped audio recording of the Barney Hill hypnotic regression conducted by Boston psychiatrist Dr. Benjamin Simon in 1964 plays within the piece. The track recounts Barney Hill's encroaching sense of cognitive dissonance and sheer terror resulting from his encounter with a phenomenon that shatters his sense of objective reality.

The fourth structure called ‘Anteroom’ can either be seen as the beginning or the end of the four- structure loop of NBZ. Within this angled periscope form the viewer glimpses a bedroom scene in which the flesh-like ‘substance’ oozes from within a framed wall hanging situated above the bed- leaking out onto the floor space along with the lunar regolith. Items strewn about the space reveal much of the inhabitants’ proclivities.  

All of the scale model elements were constructed by the artist.