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Hi All,
What an inspiring array of posts. The Age of Aquarius, as Arshiya has notes,
marks an epoch of expanded consciousness and individual freedoms. This
planetary alignment arrives as a moment of promise in expanded intuition where
at the same time privacy is in danger of being eroded by the surveillance
capitalism of big data. I resonate with Sally’s perception that the mood is at
once “super-charged…and vulnerable.”
It is interesting that Spiritualism arose at an affective climate of collective
grief (the American Civil War) coinciding with emancipatory social movements,
in particular abolitionist feminism. The current paranormal opening, likewise,
arrives at the crest of collective grief stemming from the pandemic and Black
Lives Matter. The tone of the moment was presciently anticipated by Okwui
Enwezor whose posthumous Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America is
now on exhibition at the New Museum
(https://www.newmuseum.org/exhibitions/view/grief-and-grievance-art-and-mourning-in-america-1).
But I wanted to pick up the thread of Renate and Tim’s work on sense/sensation
signalled by Ann. It appears that touch and the tactile interface operate in
relation to intuitive technologies such as the séance (where hands are held in
a circle to create a current supporting mediumship), to Chrysanne’s aura
photographs (which involved a tactile biofeedback interface to generate
images), to the relationality of the Tarot reading (where the handling of cards
has operated emblematically in allegories of touch since Caravaggio).
In regard to the performativity of intuition: Ruth, I’d be interested in
hearing more about the staging of the playing card cartomancy of the Canadian
clairvoyant you mention; and Bev, might you envision the role touch in reading
your new Tarot cards?
And on the documenting of the séance: Serena, do the mediums in the Hamiltons’
photographs directly address the photographers when in a spirit circle?
Chrysanne, how did you orchestrate the aura photographs to have
non-English-speaking subjects peer directly at the lens (as many of your
compelling subjects do) with their hands on the biofeedback interfact.
Warmly,
Jennifer
Jennifer Fisher
Professor Contemporary Art and Curatorial Studies
Department of Visual Art and Art History CFA 252
York University 4700 Keele Street
Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3
jef...@yorku.ca
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