Larissa Brown
Normaldome, 2002
7 feet by 7 feet by 13 feet
1800 interoffice envelopes, clipboards, transparencies

A temporary installation in the Portland Building, Normaldome centered around a 7-foot-tall three-dimensional "normal curve" - the symmetrical, bell-shaped curve used in statistics - but with a twist. The curve was built out of more than 1800 inter-office envelopes.

Normaldome used the shape of the statistical curve to examine the complex systems of order that underlie our lives and allow us to interact. It called to mind the mountains of information we push around among one another in our daily lives, and the immensity of all the work we do. A hub of city business, where people line up to use ATMs and pay their water bills, seemed a perfect place for this installation. One viewer noted, "It's an upside-down bureaucratic black hole," and another wrote "It looks like my desk."