Every once in a while, an artist is able to appropriate an ordinary object in such an extraordinary way that the object becomes lifelike; this is what Daniel Wurtzel has done with 'Magic Carpet.' The installation involves the creation of a vortex of wind by a circle of fans on the ground. When a sheet is placed in the center of the fans, it gets caught in this vortex of wind and puts on a marvelous and delicate 'dance' that is quite distinctly life-like. 

'Magic Carpet' reminds us of the delicate balance between perception and reality. I would guess that, for most people, the concept of a sheet doesn't really conjure up any ideas of movement, personality, or fluidity; and yet, here is a sheet embodying all of those ideas at once. As children we posses such a strong sense of wonderment about everything we encounter; we don't have rigid ideas of what particular objects are, we simply experience them in their environments. It is not until we have experienced the same object multiple times that we truly learn what to expect from it. If we can break down the barrier between the reality of that which we experience and our imaginations, we can start to see the world from a child's perspective once more. This allows our perception to tell us that a sheet can dance, that a flower can wave to us in the wind, or that the tail lights and trunk of a car make up a smiley face. For an artist, this ability to reimagine and redefine objects is crucial: if you are too far grounded in what already exists, you won't leave yourself enough room to imagine what could be.