The Metaphysical Dreamworlds of VLM

In Eye Moon Cocoon, multidisciplinary artist Virginia L. Montgomery (VLM) presents a new metaphysical and multimedia exhibition designed to facilitate hope, healing, and connection. Her solo exhibition interweaves ideas from psychoanalysis, mythology, and science through a dream-like dialogue between video, sound, photographs, and sculptural objects.

Eye Moon Cocoon features VLM’s ongoing examination of native Texas Luna moths and our multifaceted associations of the moon. VLM and her moth-familiars co-create a curious dreamworld of symbols (like circles, holes, spheres); sounds (like Texas thunderstorms, temple bells, power drills); and gestures of gentleness to conjure an environment for hope. Eye Moon Cocoon is on display at Women & Their Work in Austin, Texas, through November 30, 2023.

Interview by Tyler Nesler

I'm curious about the genesis of your ongoing examination of native Texas Luna moths. When did you become interested in Luna moths, and what eventually sparked your idea of hand-raising them? What is your process of raising them effectively, and how did you learn to do it?

During the pandemic, when you were stuck inside your home, did you feel like you were living inside a cocoon? I did.  It was during this time that I began researching Luna moths, both to investigate transformation and to explore themes such as interiority and emergence. Moths were my creative outlet, so I could focus my mind on symbolic and hopeful ideas, like metamorphosis. Just like how some people learned to bake bread over the pandemic to process their feelings and make use of their time, I learned how to breed moths.

My interest in moths goes back to childhood. I grew up on the bayou in west Houston, Texas, in a swampy, sub-tropical ecosystem full of critters. I just always loved the natural world and learned much about it from my grandfather, who was a scientist. And truthfully, growing up as a sensitive kid, I just liked sitting in the tall grass, drawing, and observing bugs.

Today, I raise Luna moths and a few species of North American butterflies. I use equipment from online entomology-hobbyist-vendors or DIY it. Raising moths is a seasonal practice; I take it up in the spring and summer when the caterpillar’s host plants are leafing. Raising moths and butterflies takes patience, but it’s magical to see a moth emerge from her cocoon and come into the world! 

The experimental movements seen in Eye Moon Cocoon are inspired by "The Butterfly Effect" and "The Coriolis Effect." Could you briefly explain the ideas behind these effects and how they each work in unison as expressions of meaning for this exhibition?

The Butterfly Effect is a very popular philosophical theorem stemming from MIT mathematics that posits any small change in our environment, even the gentle flapping of insect wings, can eventually manifest a big change to our natural world, like conjuring a storm on the other side of the globe.

As an artist, I find this idea to be helpful as an eco-psychological-framing device to communicate why it is so important for us to contextualize our relationship to the natural world as being the sum total of billions of tiny actions. This is why, as an ecofeminist, I raise and release moths and butterflies during our era of climate change. Even if I only successfully raise and release 20 Luna moths a year, who knows the ecological impact that may generate after 20 years? My artwork is about conjuring hope.

Likewise, the Coriolis Effect is a science theorem that has its origins in mathematics and physics. It’s an invisible force that creates visible spirals in fluid dynamics. As an artist, my interest in the Coriolis Effect spans both the choreographic and geometric; I just love seeing how it actively swirls systems of matter into vocabularies of circles, holes, and spheres. 

You are also inspired by Dr. Donna Haraway’s When Species Meet and the philosophy of panpsychism. What is the most important teaching element of this philosophy, and how do you believe the exhibit Eye Moon Cocoon symbolically expresses it?

Yes! Eye Moon Cocoon swirls together ideas from ecofeminism and panpsychism to craft a concept that expands consciousness beyond the human. The exhibition highlights the collaborative agencies of non-human entities like the Luna moths, moons, cocoons, stones, light beams, and sound waves. These entities create the foundation of this art exhibition. I believe the philosophy of panpsychism is important because it can also be used as a tool for political action. (For example, consider New Zealand’s amazing parliamentary decision in 2017 to grant the Whanganui River the same legal rights as a human so the river could not be exploited.) As an artist, I want to show how we’re all in this together.

From reading Haraway, I’ve learned there is considerable philosophical overlap between posthumanism, ecofeminism, and panpsychic metaphysics. In When Species Meet, Haraway criticizes the ways that human relationships with nonhumans cause oppression. Haraway believes that challenging anthropocentrism is crucial. And after 2023’s record-breaking year of global temperatures, we can all see how the earth is succumbing to the chaos of climate change, largely because of humanity’s unfortunate solipsism. So, we need to confront the toxic human hubris of treating the world as inert and disposable. How do we do this? As a first step to engender action, I believe that we must embrace panpsychic philosophies that view the world as being sentient and alive. And not to be exploited or seen as “other.”

Panpsychism does this by arguing that all matter emerges in tandem with consciousness. At its core, panpsychism is a very trippy belief that suggests that consciousness is a mundane, everyday occurrence. Panpsychism postulates that consciousness is not some special thing that is unique to humans. Nor did consciousness evolve when the brains of life forms became sufficiently complex. Instead, panpsychism suggests that consciousness has always been here, just like matter itself. This is because consciousness is an inherent attribute of all matter, kind of like gravity. In other words, panpsychism suggests that literally everything has attributes of consciousness: Luna moths, moons, cocoons, stones, stars, beds, bells, machines, photons, quarks, and so on. Just everything.

As an artist, the everything-everywhere-all-at-once idea of panpsychism initially both terrified me and soothed me. In a speculative-fiction sense, I thought to myself, “OK, if consciousness is operating everywhere around us, could we know it? Could we taste it, hear it, feel it, or observe it through pattern recognition?”

Thinking about potential visual patterns for consciousness to operate is how I landed on the idea of the circle as a symbolic conduit for consciousness. I thought, “Maybe if matter and consciousness are interrelated, then maybe there is something special about matter’s tendency toward the mathematical efficiency of circles. Like in the Coriolis Effect?” Because from across the universe, from black holes to hurricanes, we can see formal examples of circles, spheres, ovoids, and holes that seem as omnipresent as consciousness itself. 

Eye Moon Cocoon explores my idea of “consciousness-as-a-circle” by weaving together the circular imagery of eye spots on moth wings, the round shape of the moon, the blinking orb of the human eye, the ovoidal shape of bubbles trapped in honey, and the aggressive hole-making, swirl of my Dewalt drill as it ruptures the pictorial plane.

A central component of the exhibit is the video Moon Moth Bed, “a surreal and symbolic art-film about destruction, rebirth, and the omnipresence of the circle. This live-action, lens-based film depicts delicate luna moths hatching from their cocoons amidst an ethereal dreamworld set with bells, a miniature moon, and a small, moth-scale bed.”

How did you work to achieve cohesiveness with the sound design and the visual elements? Did you build the sound around the imagery? What were any challenges of getting your moth “collaborators” to interact with the physical elements of the video (the strings, bells, your own hand/fingers, etc.)?

When I craft my soundscapes, I want to give texture. For each of my video dreamworlds, I construct a soundscape to feel physical, visceral, and real. I want these textured sound waves to feel like a spirit that is breathing alongside you in real-time.

Behind the scenes, I create my soundscapes by layering together hundreds of tiny sonic fragments mixed from field recordings, foley sounds, and collaborative music made with my Luna moths. To collaborate with the moths, I set up a miniature, table-top sound studio. I’ll create a small, insect-obstacle-course made from tiny bells hanging from sticks. The moths intuitively crawl over the sticks. This motion shakes the bells, which, in turn, creates a sound score!

My process for choosing sounds is to mix elements from the natural world, the human world, and my inner world. My nature sounds are often recorded in Texas state parks and feature rumbling thunderstorms or lonely water droplets echoing in caves. (Because I do love all things circular, I also like to use natural sounds that have an echoing quality to reinforce my consciousness-as-a-circle philosophy.) For the human world sounds, I record foley sounds from everyday life; I’ll sample sound effects from sputtering coffee machines, clicking cameras, squeaky beds, whining power tools, or vibrating AC units. I travel a lot for work, so I’ll also record interesting sounds I hear while killing time in airports or hotel lobbies. Last, my inner world dictates soundscape elements. I sync sounds in relation to my synesthesia.

Another video, Luna Cocoons Meet the Moon Rocks at NASA x Honey Flows over Eyes, shows you “introducing live, luna moth cocoons to the moon rocks at NASA SpaceCenter Houston; the luna moth cocoon orbits around the moon rocks as both lunar entities meet.” You created this video collaboratively with your mother, who filmed you introducing the cocoons to the rocks.

You write about the experience in a short piece, “Luna Cocoons Meet the Moon Rocks with Mom and Me.” Why was it important for you to involve your mother in this shoot, and how do you think her involvement underscored the overall themes of the project?

Yes! Mom is everything. That prose-like text both documents the purpose of our mission and grounds it in the idea that “in all the history of the Earth, no one has ever bothered to help a Luna moth get to NASA so she may encounter what she loves most: her moon.” 

My mom’s involvement was crucial because the performance embodies this uncanny choreographic doubling: Mom (who raised me) helps me as I help the Luna moth (that I raised.) This mirroring would have never happened without my Mom being there with me, the Luna cocoons, and the moon rocks. And what I also find interesting is that although my mom is visually absent from our performance documentation, she is still so physically present through her love. 

When my mom and I were at NASA, we learned about how the moon came into existence. I was surprised to learn that the celestial body that collided with the Earth 4.5 billion years ago (which created the moon) was named Theia, after the mythological Titan goddess of sight and vision, who also was the mother of the moon goddess Selene.

Through our Luna Cocoons Meet the Moon Rocks with Mom and Me performance, I wanted to acknowledge the tenderness and complexity of mother-daughter relationships. Because in a very meta way, I am aware that without my mom, none of this art would have been made.

How does your lived experience as a neurodivergent individual directly inform your work in general, particularly with Eye Moon Cocoon? 

Eye Moon Cocoon is an exhibition about drawing connections between different bodies of knowledge. This is exactly what my neurodivergent brain loves to do: employ pattern recognition, utilize hyper-systemizing, and wield synesthesia to reveal (what I perceive to be) reality’s mystical truths.

As a neurodivergent person, I think in senses. My brain’s natural processing languages are sensory-information-based: patterns, colors, textures, gestures, and sounds. For many neurotypical and language-based thinkers, this sensory-thinking phenomenon is often difficult to understand, but to many neurodivergent persons, thinking across giant swaths of data in multi-sensory dimensions.

The way I make artwork is inseparable from my neurodivergent brain. Would I be so hyper-fixated on circles if my brain wasn’t organized to seek patterns? I can’t say…And from just looking at me, you would not know that I have multiple sensory sensitivities, synesthesia, dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, audio processing abnormalities, ASD1, and ADHD. This is why I try to talk about neurodiversity in the context of my art practice. I want to be a role model for other folks with ND to let them know that it’s safe for us to be open and candid about being ND. Also, I want to acknowledge that ND is what makes me and my art practice unique.

Your works are described as “synesthesia-esque.” What are some key elements of Eye Moon Cocoon that attempt to create direct impressions of synesthesia? 

My video Moon Moth Bed is marked by my “hearing-motion” synesthesia. The video is arranged in rhythmic jump cuts that I sequence akin to how I hear the on-screen movement progressing. I score each video after the video has been edited. My synesthesian brain naturally creates sonic landscapes whenever I see movement. So when I sit down to arrange a soundscape, I just place sounds in my videos, where I “hear” the images. It’s an intuitive process. And when I can’t find the right sound file in my foley collection, I’ll record a noise that emulates what I heard in my mind.

My “hearing-motion” synesthesia is highly idiosyncratic. For example, I don’t know why every time I see a human eye blink, I also “hear" the sound of a water droplet echo. But this is why that specific image-sound combination appears in my films. I really don’t know why my brain sees and hears eye blinks and water drops as a unified sensorial experience. But it’s how I experience the world, and as an artist, I just try to stay true to my unique experience of reality.

Your biography states that you have “a parallel career as a visual ideation scribe, a Graphic Facilitator, a unique profession for which [you] travel the world to diagram the development of ideas at generative group meetings like TED talks, DEI events, and innovation conferences.”

How do this career and your work as a fine artist co-mingle and cross-pollinate in mutually beneficial, productive, or even sometimes surprising ways?

Both practices use symbols as mechanisms for meaning-making, but each practice uses symbols for different ends.

In my fine art practice, I choreograph a repeating lexicon of symbols throughout the videos, soundscapes, and sculptures that I create. For example, eyes, holes, and circles are all repeating symbols in my art (and prominently feature in my Eye Moon Cocoon exhibition too). In my artwork, I layer these symbols to create multifaceted associations (between ecofeminism, particle physics, panpsychic metaphysics, etc.). In my art practice, symbols serve as surrealist devices to create complexity.

In contrast, as a professional graphic facilitator, I use symbols to create clarity. Here, I use symbols as visual storytelling tools to help TED-talk audience members understand a concept as quickly as possible. The illustrations I create as a graphic facilitator use symbols so that meeting participants can absorb and retain the content from the group meeting. As a graphic facilitator, I use symbols to communicate ideas clearly.

All in all, regardless of what ends one is using symbols for, I do believe that symbols are powerful tools to share ideas and create consciousness connections.

Eye Moon Cocoon is on display through November 30, 2023, at Women & Their Work in Austin, Texas.