The Astrologer Who Fell Into A well

Melanie King, Eric Lesdema, Sheena Rose, Semiconductor,

Jane & Louise Wilson.

The Astrologer Who Fell Into A Well 

CAS Osaka 2018

The title of the exhibition is an Aesop Fable, a morality tale about a star gazer ignoring hazards on a path. A story written many centuries ago but one that revealed the emerging trend to dismiss the night sky as a place of inquiry, becoming only relevant  as study for Sailors. Our conceptual paradigm explored further the waning interest in the heavens, as a subject of awe and wonder, this reverence now being assimilated into a spaces of technology.

Astrologers viewed the sky as a code to unlock the myopia of our world. Through these cosmic calendars of patterns in black skies that glitter with constellations they saw ourselves and our lives. This was a landscape as full and relevant as the terrestrial Today, the gravitational influence of planetary transits is of minor concern to the predilections of the everyday and the “out of this world” is most often located within the metaphors of communication. In Europe the revolutions of industry shifted painterly horizons that had inspired artists to render the skies angelic became turbulent. Modernity has assured those heavenly departure gates are permanently closed and for the first time in humanities history, we have lost every idea or ideal of paradise, perhaps a concept that now exists on the screens of technology TV, cinema, computers, phones etc.

Yet despite this the sky still conjures the wondrous, even when dimmed by the orange glow of cities when aeroplane lights blink at the crescent moon and we know that satellites can deliver data faster than the portents comets but even with these additions, but taking the time to look up on cloudless nights we are often surprised by our feelings.

It was post world war cinema that evolved the Sci fi genre, merging representations of the heavenly with augmented contemporary. Cinema created places where such cosmic sublimity is emphasised and movies such as, 2001 A Space Odyssey often concluded in the transcendental. Are Sci Fi protagonists always on journies with spiritual undertones, often exaggerated in the hyper coloured that emphasises the omnipotence. 

That there is nothing more than this, is a soporific acknowledgment that can only increase our determination to ease into the future through technology. The click through continuum softens perceptions of reality in a solitary stimuli of online imaging and streaming sounds. The outer limits of an outer space, inside our imaginations now, move inward in electronically powered information transfer.

We venture virtually to create the virtuous with mimetic heavens  when we wish upon synthetic stars.

“This astrologer in the well, resembles all of his false art, who while they are in danger, dream, that in the stars, they read the happiest theme.”

Eric Lesdema

An artist whose works includes performance, installation and photography, currently investigating  “Isotechnography” as the subject of a PhD research with Roy Ascot’s “Planetary Collegium”.  He was awarded the UN Nikon World Prize For Photography in 1997 and continues to collaborate on projects with galleries and museums. The sculpture “Drowning The Moon”  was installed and on view at CAS in Osaka. Eric Lesdema participated in a public discussion on the concepts and issues raised in his work for “The Astrologer Who Fell Into A Well”. ​

Jane & Louise Wilson

Two artists whose film and photography illustrate the politics inherent in architecture and implications of technologies to our understanding of realities. They were nominated for the Turner Prize in 1999 and have exhibited internationally during a 30 year career. A screening of the art work “Dream Time” was included in The Astrologer Who Fell Into A Well” at CAS in Osaka.

Melanie King

An artist whose principal subject is photography with a focus on the cultural connection between materials and phenomena existing beyond Earth’s atmosphere;  “Astronomy Ecology" is the subject of her PhD research at The RCA in London . A director of Lumen Studios and Super Collider, organisations that host exhibitions and residencies exploring optics, science and creativity . Three photographs from the series “Ancient Light” were included in The Astrologer Who Fell Into A Well at  CAS in Osaka.. Melanie King was also a participatipant in a public discussion on the concepts and issues raised in her artworks.

Sheena Rose

An artist who navigates intimacy through portraiture and it's transformation within modalities of communication. Previously a  Fulbright Scholar whose current media ascent can be measured with features in The New York Times and Vogue. The premier of “The Astronaut” was previewed live via Periscope streamed from Barbados at The Manpuku-ji Temple in Osaka

Semiconductor

Artistic duo Ruth Jarman & Joe Gerhardt make artworks that explore the material nature of our world and how we experience it through the lens of science. After a celebrated show at Art Basel they are currently participating in The 2018 Sydney Biennial. Semiconductor will be screening “Black Rain” and “Brilliant Noise” at CAS Osaka for The Astrologer Who Fell Into A Well

Mark Waugh - Bubble Entendre

Bubble Entrendre

MARK WAUGH (2009)

Bubble Entendre* as a novel operates as a satellite capturing data from the cultural landscapes in which as a curator and artist Mark Waugh has located a range of artworks, from performance to film and installation. It is the most complete archive of these activities and yet immerses this history in the fragmentation of a corpus.

Whilst many of the artworks he has made are ephemeral, the book remains and is therefore a particular trope of place in which the body works and continues to produce a catalogue of involuntary spasms like a hanged man or sashimi octopus.

1. A siege at Claridge’s in 2012 replaces the Olympics as end of the world TV spectacle.

2. Hard-boiled noir meets classic French theory as a zombie author transgresses the outer limits of postmodern fiction. The warped narrative plunges from art house to grindhouse and back again.

3. An insanely unofficial fictional updating of Derrida’s Of Grammatology. Think 24 Hour Party People as directed by Kenneth Anger after he’d croaked and crawled on all fours through the furthest recesses of hell.

Brazen sadists, high-flying hopheads, invisible strippers and the destiny of objects are just some of the themes tackled by Mark Waugh in Bubble Entendre, a tripartite, literary bender. Dirty, dingy, Wilhelm Reich might have penned this book.

Bubble Entendre is published as part of Book Works’ Semina series (No.3). Edited by Stewart Home.

Women Of The Sea & Preen by Thornton Bregazzi | AW18

"Feminist quiz question of the day: Where in the world has a society existed since the 17th century in which women do all the work and the men take care of home and childcare? Google “haenyeo divers” and you’ll find that just such an impressive cultural economy exists in the Jeju coastal area of South Korea, where the “Amazons of Asia” dive for valuable shellfish without breathing apparatuses well into their eighties. Thea Bregazzi and Justin Thornton discovered this at a traveling photography exhibition at London’s National Maritime Museum last year. “They are just so incredibly strong, and we found it fascinating to look at how they dress to dive—with their scuba equipment, but feminizing it with layers of lace blouses or other bits of clothing from their wardrobes.” As parents raising two daughters, the designers want to immerse their children in the belief that gender equality is a right. After deep reading around the haenyeo community, they made the obvious connection with the state of mother nature. The makings of a collection that centered on eco-feminism was born.

With prior knowledge of this research background, you could pick out the references: the tight hoods, scuba fabric parkas and pencil skirts, trails of fishnet, bags manifested as buoys, marine blues, shimmery mother-of-pearl and gold sequins, and “seaweed”-sprouting shoes. Had you not read up? You’d see Preen by Thornton Bregazzi working its way through its signature repertoire of florals and dippy-hemmed dresses, with some Asian-appropriated padded brocade coats, fringed with goat hair.

Where does that leave us? The submerged meanings are important to these designers—they’ve gotten into the habit of leaving photographs of stacks of their reading matter on benches at their shows. Still, plunging into eco-waters and matters of cultural appropriation will inevitably raise many questions today." Sarah Mower Vogue

Press Release The National Maritime Museum

"Join the National Maritime Museum as it celebrates the start of Women’s History Month with the opening of Haenyeo: Women of the Sea, an exhibition exploring the fascinating lives of the female divers of Jeju in South Korea.

Running from Sunday 5th March to Saturday 1st April, the fascinating story of haenyeo and their community is told from two different perspectives, through life-size photographic portraits taken by Hyung S. Kim, and SeaWomen, a video and sound installation by Mikhail Karikis. Both components of the exhibition celebrate the unique culture of haenyeo, who for centuries have harvested seafood from the ocean without any diving apparatus. The women dive for up to seven hours a day and range in age from 11 to over 70 years.

The inspiration for Kim’s series of portraits stems from his visit to Jeju Island in 2012, where he was captivated by the haenyeo and the power, resilience and unique physical performance used in their daily lives. He chose to photograph them in their most natural state, showing the divers emerging from the sea, exhausted and wet after the long hours spent diving. The photographs are intended to show the haenyeo, not as relics, nor trophies, but as beautiful and strong portraits of working women.

Karikis came across the divers, searching for seafood and pearls, during his residency on the island of Jeju. Taken aback by the unique way the haenyeo communicate with one another, his video and sound installation captures the sonic signature of the community of divers. Karikis has also created watercolour portraits, painted whilst holding his breath in empathy with their working conditions. Both artists’ work is an insight into the culture of the Jeju divers, who have contributed to the advancement of women’s status within their community, whilst promoting environmental sustainability with their eco-friendly fishing methods.