Joseph O'Connell approaches art as a venue for exploring and expanding what it means to be human. Some of his pieces stand as individual actors: mechanical beings sharing our world with their own unique model of existence. Other works form small spaces that surround: uneasy but protected environments that grant us permission to lower our defenses and witness our own true ways of being. Projected light and human-powered motion blur the boundaries between viewer, artwork, and environment, further allowing a temporary suspension of reality and moments of internal reflection. Using beauty to disarm, these works co-opt their larger site framings into stages for moral, emotional, and intellectual self-reflection.