HOUSHIAN’S FURNITURE

Built to evoke the fictional narrative of Houshian’s polycosmic explorations, the furniture is more than just a look piece.

Induction drivers installed behind the back cushion turns the entire chair into a speaker; its user can recline into a thick block of sound. Paired with a custom score by Daniel LK Caldwell, the experience is deeply immersive, meditative, and relaxing.

Roksana Houshian was a renowned futurist, best known for her visionary work designing the 1st Gen Yasna Moon Base. Her revolutionary concepts in extraterrestrial infrastructure, logistical flow, and resource sustainability set the stage for the expansion boom of the Second Space Age.

The furniture is a collection of one-of-a-kind pieces from her private residence, designed and fabricated by Houshian herself. After her mysterious disappearance, these pieces, along with some of Houshian's personal effects and notes, were sold at auction by her wife, Ruth.

Houshian believed in a polycosmic model of reality, specifically that an individual's energy is spread across all instances of oneself. By behaving in certain ritualistic ways, one can increase the probability that these instances coincide, thereby consolidating energy, eventually achieving a kind of subconscious interdimensional communication.

This chair played a significant role in Houshian's quest to merge her polycosmic self. In her notes, she characterized the chair’s minimalistic design as an "inevitability" and incorporated it into regular periods of meditation. The intention of this ritual was to increase the probability that multiple instances of herself would be meditating in the same timeplace and the overlap would increase her energy density.

If her theories are to be believed and Houshian was able to achieve polyscosmic connection, the fragmented nature of the notes and the immense scale of her plans suggests that she may have been able to coordinate tasks across infinite instances of herself, thereby magnifying her productivity. Perhaps within the polycosmic model lies the answer to her mysterious disappearance as well.

Houshian’s furniture was part of our “Artifacts from the Multiverse” gallery installation.