Exhibition Practice
Gate Control Theory
New York New York · 2014 · 119 × 99 cm · Silkscreen on wax in welded steel tray
In their 1965 paper, Melzack and Wall proposed that pain could be modulated by competing stimuli — pressure, cold, touch — travelling through the nervous system faster than pain signals, effectively closing the gate before they reach the brain.
O’Connell applies this logic to the psychological design of casino carpets. The bold, disorienting patterns that carpet Las Vegas casino floors are engineered stimuli — keeping gamblers alert, spending, unable to locate an exit. O’Connell’s silkscreens take these patterns as source material, then subjects them to the physical interventions of massage therapy: rubbing, kneading, tapping into the wax surface.
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