Curiouser and curiouser! is the centerpiece of the Arizona Science Center’s lobby. Walking down the ramp and arriving in the lobby, visitors are greeted by a stainless steel model telescope. Looking into the scope, they see a small round video, taking them on a tour of all sorts of science imagery gathered from around Arizona: scenes from labs, from collections, data, and scientists working in the field. As they look into the telescope, a tiny video camera records the image of their eye, and feeds it to a giant version of the telescope that they have been looking through. At the end of the telescope is a circular video monitor, showing the live feed from the camera in the small telescope: a giant eye inspecting the goings-on in the museum.

The artwork’s title is borrowed from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, inviting us to imagine ourselves growing huge and then tiny, exploring the strange and wonderful world around us:

“Curiouser and curiouser!” Cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English). “Now I’m opening out like the largest telescope that ever was!”