The Higgs Ocean project documents a unique action staged off the coast of the Svalbard Islands in the Arctic Circle. During the weeks immediately preceding his departure to the Arctic, the artist conducted several tests for collecting, storing, and retransmitting the sun’s energy using solar panels installed on top of a group of cars. With various equipment configurations at numerous locations throughout Brooklyn, Galvani set up a system to convert radiant energy into electricity, and back again into luminosity with the same original frequency of the Sun’s natural light. On an extremely cold January day, an unexpected snowstorm interrupted these tests. Higgs Ocean #1 documents the project’s momentary failure. The storm and ensuing blanket of snow interfered with the absorption of light, and the car was transformed into an inactive sculpture—frozen in a temporary state of helplessness. More than 10 years after the creation of the work, the artist affirms: “In silence and in a low voice, inside the very cold whiteness of white, urgent and conflicting feelings awaken in us (as if from a long lethargy). Paradoxically, we recognize ourselves now more than ever in that uncertainty, but it had always been there: the upheaval of the planet, the precipice of the global economy, the crisis of resources, atomic conflicts, a post-war future and the return to an archaic thought. … Yet reality is still so full of potential, of possible revenge, of new paths. It is an off mechanism, frozen in wait. It is the energy of the universe that sleeps under the snow. “