A neurosurgeon had three months to live. He decided to take his fate in his own hand. He finished building an enigmatic structure in the desert a biologist before him had left unfinished. In the final moment, he went in and attained a different state of existence. What happened to the neurosurgeon? What is this structure – one that in fact links medieval China to modern Europe?

Eugene Wang is Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Professor of Asian Art at Harvard University. A Guggenheim Fellow, he is the author of the award-winning Shaping the Lotus Sutra: Buddhist Visual Culture in Medieval China. He is also the art history editor of Encyclopedia of Buddhism. His research ranges from early Chinese art and archaeology to modern Chinese art, media, and cinema. He is also the founding director of Harvard CAMLab that explores the nexus of cognition, aesthetics, and new mediums.