This is a 2007 piece called Forgiveness, by artist Dan Attoe. I don’t know what it means. And it’s art, so your interpretation’s as good as mine. It’s made of neon light, wire, a transformer and controllers. Here it is in a well-lit room at the Saatchi Gallery.

Attoe describes himself as “a rural guy from the punk rock/heavy metal generation working at blue collar jobs to get through school and get by.”

A commenter on that interview noted, “The quality of Dan’s work that I find so compelling, and the part that I hypothesize people relate to, is that he depicts human beings in all their ugly, lecherous, beer-bellied, failure-riddled, stupid, hedonistic, dorky, vain, animal glory with kindness. [He doesn’t] pass judgment, and [he] recognizes the bright, burning-tinged-with-sadness of being alive. I get the same vibe from Dan’s [work] that I get from reading Zen writings. We are here, we have appetites, we grasp at everything, we yearn, we die, we are sort of ridiculous creatures, the Universe continues as if we never existed.”