ON THE EDGE OF THE INFINITE (PART 12): AS ABOVE, SO BELOW

A One-Night Immersive Show of Live Percussive Dance, Surrealist Art, and Tarot on the Lower East Side

Featuring: Melissa Almaguer, Iliana Ortega, Courtney Puckett, Rachel Grobstein, Lauren Comito, Adina Andrus, Julia Popescu

Event: On the Edge of the Infinite (Part 12): As Above, So Below

Date & Time: Saturday, August 29, 2026 | 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

Location: Lichtundfire, 175 Rivington Street, Lower East Side, New York, NY 10002

On the Edge of the Infinite is a series of one-night events that explores the fascination with the end of time and what lies beyond it. Focusing on the space between an ending and the limitless unknown. Curated by Laura Horne, Steven Pestana, and Sophia Sobers.

In this twelfth edition, that threshold is explored through the framework of the Tarot, a system built on archetypes, fate, and human transformation. Tap dancer Melissa Almaguer will act as an alchemical anchor in the space, using improvisation to turn the floor into a live acoustic heartbeat. Video artist Iliana Ortega’s projection Essays On Light, six short works created with sound designer Ivan Naranjo, uses nocturnal projections softening the physical boundaries of the room pulling the viewer into a dreamlike environment.

Lauren Comito traces the flattened templates of everyday packaging to reveal hidden geometry, building drawings and paintings that function like ancient schematics. Courtney Puckett builds three-dimensional totems out of discarded furniture, household items, and textiles. Her work connects modernist sculpture with generational traditions of feminine craft, particularly in her “Characters” series that stand around the room like towering Major Arcana figures. In Adina Andrus’ “Party of the Mystics” series, she creates votive objects evoking ancient ceremonies and festivals centered around natural and cosmic deities, with each work named after a month of the year to emphasize the cyclic nature of rituals.

Rachel Grobstein uses miniature sculpture to examine overlooked daily routines. Her UFO series imagines a provisional museum display of UFO artifacts scattered among everyday tools. Her work mirrors the unstable, intuitive nature of divination, showing how we gather symbols to attempt to make sense of life’s larger mysteries. Bringing the theme full circle, Julia Popescu (aka Snakes for Hair) brings her deep background in mythology, symbology, and world mystical traditions into the room, offering live Tarot readings throughout the night so visitors can directly consult the cards.

Enduring Geometry

Lauren Comito’s prints represent systems of complex organization, figures that dual as both schematic and substrate — waiting to be activated, assembled, and cultivated. Working from flattened packaging as templates, Comito traced the hidden geometry of everyday containers, finding within them the raw material for something far more enduring. Reminiscent of ancient codes and sacred icons, these large-scale black and white prints are blueprints for rebuilding, their shapes and compartments folding and unfolding to reveal a packaged logic that functions as both instruction manual and devotional object. The shapes drawn from these humble containers — their circles, grids, and bilateral symmetry — carry an unexpected resonance, echoing the geometry found in nature and in the sacred objects of ancient cultures. In reclaiming the disposable as something monumental, Comito’s work quietly asks what we choose to preserve, and what we throw away.

New School PTF Develop Fund Awardee

Recently I was awarded a grant through the New School where I have taught for the last 4 years. This is funding goes towards the making of my first artists’ book. I began my journey by taking a workshop with Anne Eder at the Penumbra Foundation to learn how to work with phytograms and lumen prints. This fascinating process uses plant chemistry. Below are some of my first experiments.

The following group of images are examples of lumen prints and contact prints from the phytograms above. I experimented combining plastic packing with the botanicals.