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