David Normal is a painter, animator, and installation maker based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He got his start in the mid-1980s making fliers for the Bay Area hardcore punk scene. In 1989 he declared himself a “Crazyologist”, an art philosophy of cracked logic and applied insanity that he developed throughout his life and work.

In the 1990s Normal began building large-scale work for the Burning Man Festival, and collaborated closely with Burning Man founder Larry Harvey, contributing key concepts and themes to the burgeoning festival.

In the 2000s David Normal began experimenting with painting on translucent media such as silk to create lightboxes. This became The Illuminations, highly detailed oil paintings that were printed large format and mounted on edge-lit Plexiglas. The Illuminations installation consisted of these glowing double-sided lightboxes in a dark room. Exhibitions took place in San Francisco, New York, Berlin, and Los Angeles between 2010 and 2013.

In 2015 his paintings were the subject of a solo exhibition at the British Library in London, Crossroads of Curiosity. In 2019 he created Cathenge, a cat-temple for Burning Man that the San Francisco Arts Commission later presented as public art at Patricia’s Green in Hayes Valley, San Francisco, where it stood from October 2022 through March 2024.

He now works from a studio in West Oakland devoted to painting, 3D printing, and installation art. Normal also travels frequently to video document rituals of spirit possession in Indonesia, Thailand, and Latin America.

Cathenge is an interactive 3D printed Cat Temple dedicated to the Ancient Space Cats. Think: Tall, elegant, mystical cat statues – “The Catoliths”. Six in total, the Catoliths are arrayed in a circle like the standing stones of Stonehenge. Similar to the Monoliths of “2001: A Space Odyssey”, interaction with the Catoliths evolves human consciousness to a higher frequency: “Holofelinity”, the Universal Cat Consciousness - the way of the Space Cats!

As a 3D printed sculptural installation, Cathenge represents the leading edge of ambition for the artistic application of large format additive printing. The sculptures are a multi-media fusion: 3D printing, LED lighting, lasers, sound, vibration and electronic interactive sensing are integral to the effect and provide visitors with a direct and palpable experience of the mystical Space Cat consciousness.

Visitors to Cathenge experience the majesty of the Catoliths through their interactive sound and lights. People moving within the circle of cat statues are detected by LiDAR beams. Soft harmonic purring tones and synchronized pulsing lights are generated which respond directly to the movement.

Cathenge was first created as theme art for Burning Man 2019. It was Black Rock City’s original, official Cat Temple. The Catoliths stood in a 100’ diameter circle around a central platform with three propane burn braziers.

In 2021, The San Francisco Arts Commission voted unanimously to award David Normal the grant to create an installation of Cathenge at Patricia’s Green Park in the popular Hayes Valley district of San Francisco. In order to produce a version of Cathenge strong enough to stand outside in San Francisco, the Catoliths had to be redesigned and reprinted completely. Careful work was done in the 3D modeling to produce a “2 ply cat”, that is to say, the print has an outer layer and an inner layer as well as a layer of “infill”. The skin of the Catolith is effectively 1/2” thick, and the Catolith’s sections all join together neatly with a system of interlocking laps.

Cathenge was installed at Patricia’s Green in Hayes Valley for over 16 months - from October 2022 through the end of March 2024. Everyday thousands of people beheld Cathenge and enjoyed the spectral aura of the Catoliths. Countless visitors experienced direct communion with the Space Cats through the interactive harmonic “purrburations” of Holofelinity - the interactive purring sound system that was a central part of the Cathenge installation and its concept.