Comments on Beyond 3d

Kenny Liu

The story mentioned in b3d about the man who built an unfolded hypercube for his house and was transported to the 4th dimension when his abode folded up reminded me of a recent commercial for the next Hellraiser movie. In the commercial there is a box, a 3d puzzle, that when "solved" transports the user to hell. These stories illustrate the mystique that surrounds dimensionality. Although in the Hellraiser movies dimensionality is never addressed directly, it is a main theme of the movie whether intentional or otherwise. For example, while he is solving the puzzle you're thinking that the guy is unlocking or figuring out some ancient secret, it might as well be the secret of folding a bunch of cubes up into the next dimension.

It is interesting to note that simply folding a piece of paper is seen as a mudane task while the idea of folding a 3d object into 4 space captures the imagination so much so that Dali would attribute the process to salvation. It is the same concept yet so much metaphysical baggage is attached to the second example. He was definitely trying to say something when he placed Christ on an unfolded hypercube. Dali thought that through Christ one could transcend oneself, leave the material world behind and experience something greater, yet he could have expressed the same idea with a regular cross because if you folded that up you would get a box. Being dimensioncentric this really doesn't inspire because we can imagine it. We can't imagine a hyper box and so the unknown, God, and whatever else you can think of is given a little space to operate. Ultimately this leads to anything from bad films to brilliant works of art. What a little pandora's box was opened when the hypercube was unfolded!