jeffery preternatural ebook

7/30/2019 Jeffery Preternatural eBook

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C E L I N A J E F F E R Y


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Preternatural


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Preternatural

Celina Jeffery

In loving memory o Dr. Garth Leon Underwood, 1919-2002

Research Fellow o the Natural History Museum, London

Museum o Nature

St. Brigids Centre or the Arts

Patrick Mikhail Gallery

Ottawa, Canada, 2011-2012

www.preternatural.ca


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PRETERNATURAL Celina Jeffery, 2011.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs

3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit: http://creativecommons.org/

licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0, or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900,

Mountain View, California, 94041, USA.

This work is Open Access, which means that you are free to copy, distribute, display, and

perform the work as long as you clearly attribute the work to the authors, that you do not

use this work for commercial gain in any form whatsoever, and that you in no way alter,

transform, or build upon the work outside of its normal use in academic scholarship without

express permission of the author and the publisher of this volume. For any reuse or

distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work.

First published in 2011 by

punctum books

Brooklyn, New York

punctum books is an open-access and print-on-demand independent publisher dedicated to

radically creative modes of intellectual inquiry and writing across a whimsical para-

humanities assemblage. We specialize in neo-traditional and non-conventional scholarly

work that productively twists and/or ignores academic norms. This is a space for the imp-

orphans of thought and pen, an ale-serving church for little vagabonds.

ISBN-13: 978-1-105-24502-2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of

Congress.


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This catalogue is published

by punctum books on the occasion

o the exhibition, Preternatural,

December 9th, 2011 to

February 17th, 2012,

Ottawa, Canada

www.preternatural.ca

T H E M U S E U M

O F N A T U R E :(produced and presented by)

9th Dec., 2011 to 12th Feb., 2012

Marie-Jeanne Musiol, Mariele

Neudecker, Anne Katrine Senstad,

Sarah Walko and Andrew Wright

S T. B R I G I D S

C E N T R E F O R

T H E A R T S :

Adrian Gllner, 10th-17th Dec., 2011

Avantika Bawa, 7th-19th Jan., 2012

Anne Katrine Senstad, 29th Jan.

17th Feb. 2012

PAT R I C K M I K H A I L

G A L L E R Y :

Shin Il Kim, 4th Jan.

7th Feb., 2012

Catalogue Design by Clare Brennan

Front Cover & Figure 20: Still rom The

Sugarcane Labyrinth, A short lm about

the Agricultural Land Art piece by Anne

Katrine Senstad - In collaboration with

Triple K and M Farms, Theriot, Louisiana,

2011 Anne Katrine Senstad

Image Credits:

All images reproduced courtesy o the

artists and their galleries.

I

| | |


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T A B L E O F

C O N T E N T S

6 Acknowledgements

7 Foreword, Celina Jeffery

8 Beyond Nature, Celina Jeffery

25 Wilderness Ontology,

Levi R. Bryant

Figure 22, Andrew Wright, Nox Borealis(Detail), 2011


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This exhibition and catalogue were

made possible by the eorts o

many people. I am indebted to the

artists and venues or their partici-

pation and enthusiastic support o

the show. In particular, I would like

to thank Patrick McDonald and

Emily Bergsma at St. Brigids Centre

or the Arts; Patrick Mikhail at the

Patrick Mikhail Gallery; and Carol

Campbell and Daniel Boivin at theCanadian Museum o Nature. The

Museum o Nature exhibition would

not have been complete without the

careul consideration and creative

input o Daniel Boivin. Id also like

to give special thanks to Monty

Reid who helped initiate the project

at the Museum o Nature. I am

extremely grateul to the Evergreen

Foundation or their support o

the show at the Canadian Museumo Nature. I would like to express

gratitude to Her Excellency Else

Berit Eikeland, Ambassador o Nor-

way, and the US Embassy or their

generous support o Anne Katrine

Senstad and Sarah Walko, respec-

tively. I am indebted to The Canada

Council or the Arts or their support

o the exhibition.

The catalogue has been made pos-

sible by the support o Eileen Joy,

Nicola Masciandaro, Dan Mellamphy,

and Simon OSullivan at punctum

books and the Faculty o Arts at the

University o Ottawa, to which I am

extremely grateul. I would also like

to thank Levi R. Bryant or his excep-

tionally enthusiastic participation

in the catalogue. For their creative

input in designing the catalogue, I

would like to thank Clare Brennan

and Patrick Mikhail.

The ollowing people have also

contributed signicantly to thedevelopment o the exhibition

and catalogue or which I am most

appreciative: Penny Cousineau-

Levine; Zarina Mail; Britta Evans

Fenton; Megan Toye; and Tiany Tse

amongst others at the University o

Ottawa. In particular, Id like to thank

Natasha Chaykowski or her position

as curatorial assistant throughout

the research and production o this

exhibition her eorts have made

this exhibition possible. I am grateulto Jerey Keshan at the Experiential

Learning Service and Alastair Mullin

at the University o Ottawa or their

advice and support in the initial

development o the project. I am

indebted to the assistance o Nancy

Webb and Jaenine Parkinson who

assisted in the publicity and market-

ing or the show. I would also like to

thank Galerie Barbara Thumm, Berlin

or their assistance. Finally, I would

also like to thank Gregory Minissale

or his consistent encouragement

and my collaborators at Drain Maga-

zine: A Journal o Contemporary Art

and Culture.

The artists would like to thank the

ollowing galleries, institutions and

individuals or their support: Marie-

Jeanne Musiol Pierre-FranoisOuellette art contemporain, Mon-

tral; Andrew Wright The Canada

Council or the Arts, The Ontario

Arts Council and Christopher Solar;

Adrian Gllner would like to thank

Andrew Wright (photo credit), the

City o Ottawa, and the Ontario Arts

Council; Avantika Bawa Saltworks

Gallery (Atlanta, Georgia), Gallery

Maskara (Mumbai, India), and

Washington State University, Van-couver, WA; Shin Il Kim Gallery

Simon (Seoul, Korea) and Riccardo

Crespi Gallery (Milan, Italy); Mari-

ele Neudecker Galerie Barbara

Thumm; Anne Katrine Senstad

The Royal Norwegian Embassy in

Ottawa, Manuel Sander, Benny

Mouthon, CAS, The Norwegian Visual

Artists Remuneration Fund / Billed-

kunstnernes Vederlagsond, and The

Royal Norwegian Consulate GeneralHouston; and nally, Sarah Walko

would like to thank collaborators

Cindy Hartness-Crane, Anna Drastik,

and Magali Poirier-McDowell.

AC K N O W L E D G E M E N T S


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The concept o preternature is more

than nature as science, or nature

as art it exceeds the boundaries

o these classicatory systems and

opens up a space where the species

o things conjure wonder and curios-

ity, as well as ear o the unknow-

able. This exhibition calls or a

rigorous exploration o the habitual

ways by which nature is known to us,

a questioning that unolds the limitso the sub-sensible imagination.

How does the preternatural allow us

to read the unwieldly connections

between, in, and through contem-

porary art and nature?

Preternaturaldraws rom the idea

that art itsel is a orm o preter-

natural pursuit, in which the artists

participating explore the bewilder-

ing condition o being in betweenthe mundane and the marvellous

in nature. It questions a world that

understands itsel as accessible,

reachable, and knowable and

counters it with a consideration o

this heterogenous proposition.

At St. Brigids, a deconsecrated

church, Adrian Gllner (Canada),

Avantika Bawa (India/USA) and Anne

Katrine Senstad (Norway) explore

the preternatural as a phenom-

enological condition through the

investigation and exploration o

perceptual illusions, the appearance

o apparitions, and synaesthetic

eects1. In Adrian Gllners site-

specic installation, pus o white

smoke appear and then dissipate in

time with Handels Messiah rom the

ornate vaulted ceiling, gesturing at

an ethereal presence. Avantika Bawa

seeks to subvert, tease and create

a play o artice in an otherwise

unique and extraordinary place with

her interventions that involve theplacement o yellow plastic wrap-

ping along the pews, a yellow ramp

on the altar, and the playing o the

musical key o e rom a boom

box. Anne Katrine Senstad urther

investigates the tradition o mysti-

cal melody with The Kinesthesia

o Saint Brigid, a video projection

which rames the organ at the rear

o the church.

There is both reverence and mystery

in Mariele Neudeckers (UK/Germa-

ny) works which capture, invert, and

re-make nature. Inorming Neudeck-

ers work is the preternaturals ability

to subvert the logic o that which is

both strange and amiliar, a condi-

tion which is shared by Andrew

Wright (Canada), who addresses the

landscape o the Arctic as a het-

erotopic space that is disorienting,

bewildering, and curious. Marie-

Jeanne Musiols (Quebec, Canada)

electromagnetic photographic tech-

nique is used to create a herbarium,

in which spectral images reveal

microcosmic concerns through

tiny particles o light that emanate

through the darkness. Sarah Walkos

(USA) It is least what one ever sees

is a highly intricate installation that

comprises many hundreds i not

thousands o tiny, disparate sculp-

tural and live objects that seek to

exist outside o natural logic. In

The Sugarcane Labyrinth, a video byAnne Katrine Senstad (Norway), we

encounter the making o a labyrinth

on a arm in Theriot, Louisiana, USA

which engages with local arming

strategies in an act o sustainability,

recovery, and rejuvenation. Lastly,

Shin Il Kims (Korea/USA) work at the

Patrick Mikhail Gallery bridges the

spectral inquiry at St. Brigids and

the subversions o the natural world

at the Museum o Nature exhibit.

This exhibition retains the preternat-

urals engagement with prodigies:

the exceptional and wonderul in

the context o the natural, while ac-

knowledging its critical unravelling

o nature as art and art as nature.

As such, it accepts the bizarre and

incongruous nature o its etymology,

in which art, nature, and compre-

hension collide and asks: what may

be the experience o the preternatu-

ral in contemporary art?

Je Levin and Lea Steele, The Transcendent Experience: Conceptual, Theoretical a nd Epidemiologic Perspectives,

Explore . (March ): .

F O R E W O R D C E L I N A J E F F E R Y


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2

B E Y O N D

N AT U R E

C E L I N A J E F F E R Y

Thomas Aquinas described praeter

naturae ordinem as an awkward

heterogenous phenomenon and

associated the term with unusual oc-

currences and curiosity, as well as a

subjective passion o wonder.1 Pre-

ternatural orPraeter naturam cameto denote that which is beyond

nature2 and its ontology has been

dependent on two sister concepts:

the supernatural, orSupra naturam,

signiying that which is above na-

ture, and nature, ornatura, which is

dened by the habitual patterns o

the world.3 It is a condition o expe-

rience located at several interstices:

excluded by both theology and the

domain o natural philosophy, andsubsequently, its identity has proven

ambiguous and ragile as a classi-

catory system. In this regard, it may

be more tting to understand the

preternatural as enunciating itsel

in-between experience, situated

not only between god and nature,

but between the miraculous and

the mundane, the unknowable

and the knowable.4 When one is

suspended by the preternaturals

aective realm, we become lured by

its love o the strange, rare, particu-

lar and all that deviates rom both

the supernatural and the syllogism

o natures order.5 The preternatu-

rals attraction to the sub-sensible

creates gravitational pulls towards

the creative imagination and its

collapse o nature into art and vice

versa, morphing with the domain o

the marvellous.6

Lorraine Daston and Katharine Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150-1750 (New York: Zone Books, ), . Lorraine Daston, What Can Be a Scientic Object? Refections on Monsters and Meteors, Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . (Nov.-Dec. ): []. Datson, What Can Be a Scientic Object? . Daston and Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature, . Lorraine Daston, Marvelous Facts and Miraculous Evidence in Early Modern Europe, Critical Inquiry 18.1 (Autumn ): []. Daston and Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature, .

Figure 1, Adrian Gllner, Handels Cloud, 2011 | Image credit: Andrew Wright


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Mediations between the preternatu-

rals marvel and the supernatural

miracle is negotiated in three con-

ceptually driven installations created

specically or St. Brigids, a highly

ornate, de-consecrated Christian

church. The works in this exhibition,

staged in the context o the ethereal

and portentous, create events that

both sympathize and playully en-

gage with the preternaturals love o

celestial and other worldly orces.7

St. Brigids was originally built in

1890 to serve the largely Irish Cath-

olic population o the Lowertown

area o Ottawa. The architect, James

R. Bowes, designed an unusual

space with a melange o nineteenth-

century revivalism: Romanesque, art

nouveau and Tudor eatures, a style

shared by two other spaces in Ot-

tawa: the Rideau Chapel (relocated

to the National Gallery o Canada)

and the Chapel at the University o

Ottawa. Many o the murals were

painted over in the 1960s but the

building was designated a heritage

site in the 1980s and it is currently

being renovated. St. Brigids was

de-consecrated in May o 2006 due

to declining membership within the

congregation and lack o unding

or repairs and is now an arts and

humanities centre that is used orvarious cultural and artistic activi-

ties, including Irish heritage events,

music concerts and plays.

Preternaturalinvited three contem-

porary artists to produce site-

specic works that engage with the

unique character and history o the

church. At one time, the church was

the one o the greatest patrons o

the visual arts, but the nineteenth

century witnessed a dramatic

decline and shit away rom this rela-

tionship. Some practices o modern-

ist and contemporary art interven-

tions in Christian spaces continue

with the likes o Bill Violas The Mes-

sengercommissioned or Durham

Cathedral, England and exhibited in

1996, and more recently, Anish Ka-

poors Ascension, at the Isola di San

Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, 2011,

both o which sought revelatory and

transcendental spectacles.

Adrian Gllners8 exhibit in Pre-

ternaturalis a highly minimal and

ephemeral intervention which uses

the Tudor an vaults o the Western

portion o the church. Here, pus

o white smoke appear and then

dissipate through the pendants o

the vault in time with Handels Mes-

siah. The Messiah is not audible, but

alluded to by the artist, a concept

that must be completed in the

minds o the audience. Handels

Cloud(2011) [Figure 1] is in keep-

ing with The Clock Drawings[Figure

2] and Recent Drawings by George

Gershwin [Figure 3] a new series

o works by Gllner. Together they

make esoteric inquiries into energy

systems o things passed; as the art-

ist suggests, abstract compositions

are presented that contain the direct

physical energy o people who died

a long time ago. Knowing how the

images were generated imbues the

lines with a reliquary-like presence.

With Handels Cloud, the pus o

white smoke set against the white-

washed ceiling o St. Brigids appear

as being o the church and, appro-

priately, the phenomena is rare and

indenable.9

Ian Maclean, Natural and Preternatural in Renaissance Philosophy and Medicine, Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci., Vol. , No. , . . Adrian Gllner is a contemporary conceptual artist working in Ottawa who holds an abiding interest in abstraction and the history o the last century. Over the last decade, Gllner has received

more than public art commissions in a number o cities including Vancouver, Ottawa, Toronto, and Berlin. Notable among these are an integrated sculpture or the Canadian Embassy in

Berlin, and the project entitled Boulevard, in which he designed and created artistic street lighting or the City o Vancouvers presentation o the Vancouver Winter Olympics. Gllners

work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions throughout Canada, the United States, Europe, and New Zealand. Adrian Gllner, Artist Statement, . Unpublished.

Figure 3, Adrian Gllner, Recent Drawings by GeorgeGershwin, 2011

Figure 2, Adrian Gllner, The Clock Drawings, 2011


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4

It was during the Renaissance that

the marvellous was embraced,

leading to an expansion o the

preternatural to include celestial

and ethereal presences as well as

the human imagination.10 Theorists

even began to avour the artists

creative power as a marvel that

could imitate and even rival god.11

It is within this lineage that Gllner

situates himsel, yet its veracity is all

the more compelling because o the

artists witty and playul push and

pull o what is real and what is illu-

sion. Handels Cloudis reliant upon

both ephemerality and a dialogue

with the incomprehensible: is the

gently rhythmical smoke a vestige

o Handel, the messiah, the church,

or the artist? In this situation o

elision between what is known and

unknown, o what is credulous and

ake, we explore the preternaturals

disposition or wonder and its

myriad ranges o perceptual illusion-

ism. The question o how art queries

the sensations o what is unknown

and un-experienced are also at

work in Anne Katrine Senstads light

projection.

Anne Katrine Senstads site-specic

installation, Kinesthesia or St. Brigid

(2011), is a large video o slowly

changing abstract colour projected

over the organ and surrounding

architectural details o the upper

rear o the space and accompanied

by J. G. Thirlwells sound composition.

[Figure 4] Senstad is a Norwegian

artist working mainly with light

installations and she has produced

a body o works revolving around

concepts o colour synesthesia

works inspired by the overlapping o

the senses, particularly o colour and

sound.12 Some o her previous works

have dealt with themes o colour

and light fux, internal landscapes,

and optical perception o the phe-

nomena o space, time, light, and

mass. At St. Brigids, a video projec-

tion emits a striking arrangement o

colour sequences: a startling blood

red a vibrant blue a warm

green a stunning yellow, which

transgresses through the space to

envelop and seemingly disintegrate

its architectural details. [Figure 5]

The projection foods the organ in

the upper rear o the church, merg-

ing with the accompanying compo-

sition by Thirwell, whose subtle and

delicate sound weaves in and out

o the modulating colour creating a

wash o mystiying tones throughout

the entirety o the church.

Figure 4, Anne Senstad, Installation as is (1) rom Colour Kinesthesia or Saint Brigid, 2011 Figure 5, Anne Senstad, Installation as is (3) romColour Kinesthesia or Saint Brigid, 2011

Daston and Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature, . Daston and Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature, . Anne Katrine Senstad is a multi-disciplinary Norwegian artist living in New York. She holds a BA rom Parsons School o Design. Her work examines the perceptive phenomena o light,

colour, sound, spatial relations, sensorial and perceptive aesthetics. Her work explores the architecture o space created through light and colour. She works with photography, video, light in-

stallations, site and time specic installations and agriculture. Senstad has exhibited widely internationally, including Zendai Moma in Shanghai, Museum da Casa Brasileira in Sao Paulo, The

Noorderlicht Institution in The Netherlands, Houston Center or Photography, Gary Snyder Fine Art, Elga Wimmer Gallery, Bjrn Ressle Gallery in New York, Utsikten Kunstsenter in Norway,

and with KK Projects during Prospect in New Orleans. She is currently working on a major public art commission in collaboration with the award-winning Norwegian architecture rm

Snhetta to be completed in all . Art airs include Scope Miami, Scope New York, DIVA Paris, Miami Photo, London Book Art Fair/Serpentine Gallery, Paris Photo, Sao Paolo Contempo-

rary Art Fair, HAF Hong Kong, Seoul Art Fair, KIAF Korea International Art Fair, and MiArt Milano Contemporary Art Fair. Senstads work appears in private, corporate, museum, institutional

and gallery collections.


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Avantika Bawa is an artist, curator, and academic. She has an MFA in Painting rom the School o the Art Institute o Chicago () and a BFA in Painting rom the Maharaja Sayajirao

University o Baroda, India (). She was a participant at the Skowhegan School o Painting and Sculpture (), the Vermont Studio Center (), Milepost , Portland, Oregon (), and

the Jentel Artist Residency Program, Wyoming (). Noteworthy exhibits include: The South by East Biennial in Boca Raton, Florida; solos at The Columbus Museum, Columbus, Georgia;

Saltworks Gallery and the Atlanta Contemporary Arts Center, Atlanta, Georgia; Lalit Kala Academy and Nature Morte Gallery, New Delhi, India; Gallery Maskara, Mumbai, India; Disjecta and

Portland State University, Portland, Oregon; and juried group shows at the Museum o Contemporary Art, Georgia, The Drawing Center and Smack Mellon, NY and SAVAC, Canada. Her works

have been reviewed in international publications such as the New York Times, Art Papers, Art Lies, Art India, Art Asia Pacic, The Oregonian, and The Times o I ndia, amongst others. Bawas

curatorial work began with a hotel room show during the Art in Chicago air () and has grown through her stu dio and gallery, aquaspace a laboratory or new and multi-media art. In

she was part o a team that launched Drain: A Journal o Contemporary Art and Culture (www.drainmag.com). She is currently Assistant Proessor o Fine Arts at Washington State University,

Vancouver, Washington. Celina Jeery, Interview with Avantika Bawa, November .

Senstads work has an intertextual

relationship with Wassily Kandinskys

theosophically inspired theories o

art, in which the dematerialization

o the image and the move towards

synesthetically inormed abstrac-

tion inspires spiritual revolution.

Although Senstad is not overtly

preoccupied with the avant-garde

revolutionary instinct o Kandinsky or

his spiritualism, they share the desire

to immerse the viewer in a sym-

phony o colour and light, to elevate

and stimulate perceptual and aural

interrelationships in order to access

experiences o a higher order. Unlike

Gllners subtle intervention, Sens-

tads piece is all engulng yet equally

indenite and strange, lending itsel

to a simulated-metaphysical inquiry,

bordering on the sublime wherein

the spectral presence o St. Brigids is

literally illuminated.

Avantika Bawa13 has created a series

o interventions with bright yellow

plastic wrapping and ramps, placed

rhythmically throughout the pews

and altar o the space to mimic

the key o E which is played rom

a boom-box [Figure 6]. Bawa is

known as a site-specic, minimalist

sculptor who comments on mass

consumption through appropria-

tions o commercial objects and thesubtlety o perception in the built

sphere. [Figure 7] Her orms are

oten simple and quietly integrate

with the architectural eatures o the

space exhibited, creating witty illu-

sions and subversions.

At St. Brigids, Bawa was inspired

by the aural dynamic o the space

between the altar and the organ

to create a sculptural equivalent to

the musical note o E: By actual-

izing this ethereal and aural reso-

nance in what may appear to be an

overtly articial maniestation,

she argues, I bring the history, aura

and mysticism o the space back to

a state that is tangible.14 The work

titled [ ..#..#.... ]is an elegant inter-

vention o blips and pulses o yel-

low, the colour closest to the chord

o E. The yellow placements lead

the eye to a yellow-gold ramp which

highlights the convergence o how

sound, light and perspective are in

a spiritual context. The bright and

warm yellow intentionally contrasts

with the bleak white and gray o

winter, while evoking a kinship with

St. Brigid who, in turn, is associated

with Spring.

Contemplation o light, imagin-

ings o sun, warmth and eulgence

abound, yet the yellow is also plastic

and hence, utterly articial, commer-

cial and disposable in its placement,urther contorting our ability to read

between that which is authentic or

mischievous in its speculations on

aith. Neither cynical nor devotional,

Bawas yellow composition unurls

throughout the space, creating a

lively intervention: I am interested

in working ormally and abstractly.

This to me is more powerul, espe-

cially when seen in the context o

a church, an ornate space that is

already loaded with beautiul imag-

ery. My choice o yellow is a reaction

to the bleakness o the Northern

winter. It was also triggered by a

Figure 6, Avantika Bawa, Installation Sketch or[ ..#..#], 2011

Figure 7, Avantika Bawa


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6

desire to bring in a golden radiance

to the church, in a sort o synthetic

way (the yellow gold has a akeness

to it, accented by the shiny vinyl I

am using). Plus there is an India-ness

to the colour that I relate to.15 The

particular colour o yellow chosen by

Bawa is known as Indian yellow or

peori, which was originally derived

rom cow urine ed with mangos.

This warm gold-yellow is also seen

in Indian miniatures, and throughout

Indian culture rom the marigold

derived powder used in holi to the

sun itsel.

Colour is thus the key in both the

work o Bawa and Senstad and while

neither are explicitly religious, they

do galvanize its mystical potency

as described by Michael Taussig.16

Taussigs discussion o what makes

colour sacred is reliant on an

understanding o its subversive

nature, its ability to exist beyond

the categories o comprehension,

to be simultaneously substance and

action, both within the world and

the imagination: colour, he states, is

a magical substance that foats like

the breath o dying sun, a polymor-

phous substance that is the act and

art o seeing.17

At the Canadian Museum o Nature,

inexplicable events in nature cre-

ate categorical shits between art,

nature, metaphysics and knowledge.

The artists participating in this

exhibition Marie Jeanne Musiol,

Mariele Neudecker, Anne Katrine

Senstad, Sarah Walko, and Andrew

Wright each explore nature as

embedded within the micro: rag-

ments o nature that are isolated,

collected, examined and perceived.

In turn, their works mimic, invert, en-

tomb, and subvert the natural.

The slippage between art, nature

and imagination ound an early

expression in the teenth century

and resulted in the Wunderkam-

mern: immense collections o rare,

natural and articial objects which

were thought to be the product o

both human hand and divine mak-ing. Largely produced or royalty,

these collections, like Beslers Wun-

derkammern (1561-1629), thrived

throughout the sixteenth century.

Celina Jeery, Interview with Avantika Bawa, November . Michael Taussig, Into the Image, What Colour is the Sacred? (Chicago: University o Chicago Press, ), . Taussig, Into the Image, . Daston and Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature, .

Figure 8, Mar iele Neudecker, Beore You Were Born, 2001


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Drawn rom art, nature and science,

the presentation and experience o

wonders were embedded in cosmo-

logical and metaphysical systems o

inquiry.18 In the cabinets o curios-

ity o the seventeenth century,

veritable museums o preternatural

objects, the boundaries between art

and nature were urther intention-

ally hybridized and united under

the concept o the marvellous.19

Questions arose as to whether art

could and should outdo nature?20

With the emergence o natural

history in the classical episteme,

the idea o natures continuity and

structure became the distinguishing

element o natural history: there-

ater the Enlightenment sought to

discredit the rare and portentous

through epistemological explana-

tion. Despite our contemporary

acceptance o nature as an unstable

category, vestiges o the Enlighten-

ments desire to analyse, quantiy

and empirically evaluate nature

are still prevalent. Marie-Jeanne

Musiols electromagnetic herbarium,

a collection o images which register

the energy o plants as light uses a

quasi-quantiable and systematic

method, but with a curious, artistic

and philosophical aim rather than a

scientic one.21

In Preternatural, Musiol has cre-

ated a version o the museological

herbarium: a term used in botany to

describe a collection o preserved

plant specimens. Musiols herbarium

is a botanical collection o plants,

specically o the Eastern Forests

o Canada, but their taxonomic

structure is that o energy. It re-

hearses the preternatural cabinet

o curiosities, with its systematic

display o luminescent plants, each

consecutively displayed. The notion

o a classicatory system is present

thereore, but the idea o a botany

o energy is speculative, explorative

and poetic.

Marie-Jeanne Musiol, who was born

in Switzerland and currently lives

and works in Quebec, Canada,22 is

most well known or her electromag-

netic images o the energy elds o

plants.23 Here, Musiol presents The

Radiant Forest(Energy Herbaria)

(2011) [Figure 9], an installation

derived rom herBodies o Light

(1994; ongoing), a series o photo-

graphic experiments o light elds

which emerge rom plants that are

detectable via an electromagnetic

technique [Figure 10]. Musiol uses

electro-photography to probe the

material suraces o leaves, fow-

ers and various plants in order to

illuminate energy as it is expressed

through dierent states within theplant. The technique uses both ana-

logue and digital photography: the

light eld o the plant is initially cap-

tured on a black-and-white nega-

tive. Observed through the naked

eye or printed on paper, the details

Daston and Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature, . Daston and Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature, . Marie-Jeanne Musiol, Public Talk, Ottawa Art Gallery, th, January . Marie-Jeanne Musiol records the luminous imprints o plants revealed in electromagnetic elds. She is presently constituting an energy herbarium variously installed in galleries, museums

and outdoor venues. Her recent photographic work probes the light elds surrounding leaves to uncover mirror images o the cosmos enolded in the light corona. Her presentations o electro-

photography in national and international orums ocus on magnetic elds as carriers o inormation and speculate on the holographic nature o the universe (see www.musiol.ca). Musiol has also worked in Auschwitz: When the E arth Withholds () eatures images o elds on the outer rim o these camps, whose ully grown trees obscure and envelop the camps,

rendering them unrecognizable as specic places o testimony. The series that ollowed, In the Shadow o the Forest (Auschwitz-Birkenau) (), reveals the oblique presence o ash and bone,

a presence that subverts the pastoral imagery. A parallel series, a public art installation entitled Silences (), also includes images o the periphery o Auschwitz-Birkenau, but these

are accompanied by two portraits, one o a young Caucasian man and another o an elderly Vietnamese woman, who actively look out onto the places o destruction represented. Regarding

Musiols most recent Auschwitz series, see Celina Jeery, Contemplating the Void: Marie-Jeanne Musiols Black Holes, Prex Photo . (): .

Figure 10, Marie-Jeanne Musiol, Tricyrtis. From Mirrorso the Cosmos. Video, 2006, 16:46 min.

Figure 9, Marie-Jeanne Musiol, Blackcurrant (2011)rom The Radiant Forest Energy Herbarium. Electromag-netic capture. 7 in. x 5 in.


20/41

8

are not apparent. But once scanned,

the same photo negative yields

new inormation stored in the silver

layer.24 The practice allows the

imperceptible to be seen: or the

eects o pulsating, bright light,

which stream rom the veins and

edges o oliage, are rendered vis-

ible to the naked eye.

Musiols images suggest that plants

do have sensitivities: they are

extremely ragile, responding to

atmospheric weather heat and

cold, the sun and moon, as well as

the emotions o human beings sur-

rounding them. Thus, while these

energy elds are revealed, their

explanation is less well understood,

providing more questions than

answers: does a lea have a ner-

vous system? Does it react to direct

thoughts? Her objective then is to

create a physical maniestation o

the processes in which cells commu-

nicate through electrical impulses:

Art, she states, will throw us

into new realities beore they are

understood or ully described.25

We witness an invisible lie o plants:

emanations o light energy which

are startling in their beauty and yet,

all the more curious and enigmatic

because these bursting secretions

o light are the visualization o theplants last breaths beore dying or

the point at which the plant interacts

with Musiols own energy system as

momentarily restores [Figure 11].

The results o Musiols particular

treatment o fora and auna usingthis method are entirely spectral in

eect. Ghostly and ethereal, they

belong to a realm at once amiliar

and yet o another order. This is es-

pecially true o the images that are

microcosmic in their concern [Figure

12], wherein minute aspects o the

plants are magnetized to reveal

a wating o light which emerges

rom tiny but vibrant particles o

matter. These subatomic units o

light, which emanate through the

darkness, are deceptive in their

ability to double as images o the

magnitude and expanse o cosmic

matter. Indeed, there is an uncanny

similarity between electro-images

o plant energy and images o the

cosmos taken with the Hubble

telescope.26 Like clusters o explod-

ing stars amidst dark matter, these

peculiar bursts o light allude to the

innite potential o both the reality

o energy elds and our comprehen-

sion o them.

In this sense, the Radianr For-

estaddresses the possibilities o

existences beyond the realm o

the visible, and as Musiol explains,

they are a means o expressing the

nature o energy elt in the appar-

ent world.27 They are transitional

images: neither material nor non-

material, neither matter nor void,

but a concentrated engagement

o the senses that seeks to bring

expression to the truly mysterious.

There is, then, a metaphysical in-

quiry at work in these images whichacknowledges energy elds that

neither belong solely to the natural

sphere o visible, universal truths,

nor to the domain o the miraculous

or unexplainable. Instead, they exist

Marie-Jeanne Musiol, Unpublished Artist Statement, . Celina Jeery, Interview with Marie-Jeanne Musiol, March , . Marie-Jeanne Musiol, Public Talk, Ottawa Art Gallery, th January . Marie-Jeanne Musiol, Unpublished Artist Statement, .

Figure 11, Marie-Jeanne Musiol, Mirrors o the Cosmosno. 16 (Fuschia), 2006

Figure 12, Marie-Jeanne Musiol, Silver Maple (romThe Radiant Forest, Energy Herbarium ), 2011


21/41

in the movement o a classicatory

slippage more akin to the preternat-

ural disposition or unveiling a mys-

tery (the mystery o energy as light),

only to be instantly shrouded in the

uncertainty o knowing and compre-

hending the image. As such, these

luminescent images o plants read

as much as vibrations and sensa-

tions as they do as representations

o energy systems. At once deeply

contemplative and rapturous, they

create a orum in which energy

elds become the realm o beauty,

exhilaration, ragility and death.

Mariele Neudecker is a German-born

artist who currently lives and works

in Bristol (UK).28 Neudecker works

with sculpture, installation, lm, and

photography in order to examine the

concept o nature as both elemental

and constructed. Her display-case

vitrines o natural scenes in a chemi-

cal miasma navigate a path between

reality and illusion, the natural and

the unnatural, and representation

and perception.

The work emerges rom the Roman-

tic tradition: in which wonder and

the portentous are held in balance.

Sometimes there are direct quota-

tions o Romanticism, as in Stolen

Sunsets(1996), in which she mimics

the work o Casper David Friedrich,

while in others it is more general.

In her tank piece, Heaven, the Sky

(2008), two large vitrines situated

high above eye level and at dier-

ing heights, contain a craggy, Alpine

model mountain range that is also

reminiscent o Friedrichs Alpine-

scapes, but now suspended and

illuminated in liquid. Her motivation

or such pieces has as much to do

with cartography and time as it is

about the marvellous;29 they map

an imagined landscape that exists

outside o knowable time and sus-

pends it in a fuid world. The chemi-

cal intervention in these landscapes

subverts their proposed geology:

bubbles accumulate on the creases

Mariele Neudecker (born , Germany) lives and works in Bristol, UK. She uses a broad range o media including sculpture, lm and installation, and she works around the notion o the

Contemporary Sublime. Neudecker has recently been short-listed or the Fourth Plinth, Traalgar Square, London, and was the prize-winner at the . Triennale Kleinplastik -- Larger Than

Lie -- Stranger Than Fiction, Fellbach, Germany. In she showed in three international group exhibitions: Otherworldly: Artist Dioramas and Small Spectacles, MAD Museum, New York;

Screaming From The Mountain: Landscapes and Viewpoints , Srlandets Kunstmuseum, Norway; and Rohkunstbau -- Power, Marquart Castle, Berlin, Germany; and Belvedere. Warum ist

Landschat schn? Why is Landscape Beautiul?, Arp Museum, Bah nho Rolandseck, Germany. Upcoming in the near uture are solo exhibitions at Thomas Rehbein Galerie, Cologne, Ger-

many and at the Kunstmuseum Trondheim, Norway (see www.marieleneudecker. co.uk). Gemma de Cruz, Mariele Neudecker [interview], Art Review 52 (): .

Figure 13, Mariele Neudecker, Heaven, The Sky, 2008


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1 0

o hillsides imitating rain, a thick og

sluggishly rises rom the syrupy oot

o mounds, while the light-inused

tank rames the soaked, watery

landscape in distinctly northern,

almost glacial contexts.

In Preternatural, Neudecker displays

another vitrine sculpture called 4.7

km = ~ 3 Miles or ~ 2.5 Nautical

Miles(2009) [Figure 14]. Ater 400

Thousand Generations(2009), it

is the second in a series o eye-

ball sculptures, its orm being a

reerence to how the human eye

perceives in an upside-down man-

ner. Two globes encase models o

lighthouses situated on a rock and

cli which are inverted and hung

upside-down in a chemically in-

duced atmosphere. For Neudecker,the rapidly changing systems o

cartography and the value systems

associated with them is a challenge

which she conronts in this work:

Automation and the introduction o

GPS may have superseded the need

or manned lighthouses but the light

rom a turning beacon remains an

important symbol.30 Although the

vitrine-landscape is permanently

and undeniably sunken, fooded in

liquid, which stimulates our wonder

o the worlds represented, they may

also be read in a somewhat literal

way as a world awash and asunder.

Thus this ragile landscape merges

the romantic and preternatural: it

is ungraspable, untouchable, dead,

but playul and curious, too, like an

inverted snow globe.

There is no human presence in

Neudeckers work, only residues o

human intervention: roads, light-

houses, masts, tunnels and so orth.

This absence is rendered ambiguousand unsettling through the play o

scale: the beacon dominates the

cli as i it is the sole premise o this

world and yet is utterly contained

and miniaturized too. In this upside

down world, we journey through

a remote and ragile topography

wherein habitability is a lonely

prospect. As such, Neudecker is not

commenting on the concept o an

untouched nature, but our rela-

tionship to nature, the ownership

o it, and our interpretation o the

representations o it.31

Neudeckers vitrines contain a

saline solution that are tinted with

colours and use articial light to

create atmospheric eects o subtly

changing light and air in the sky.32

They are also utterly temporal as

the liquid solution creates a local-

ized and ever changing atmospheric

weather system, while the viewer

who walks around the tank also

experiences a constantly shiting

landscape o refections and illusion,

wherein the image can extend to an

unlimited, innite expanse. 4.7 km

= ~ 3 Miles or ~ 2.5 Nautical Miles

is the epitome o that which is be-

yond nature: its inversions deviate

and obscure nature, while rendering

the macrocosmic as microcosmic

and vice versa. In a sense, it is this

impossible condition, improbable

cartography and state o being

that makes Neudeckers work so

captivating.

4.7 km is accompanied by a large

photo-print o a tank piece called

Much Was Decided Beore You

Were Born (2001) [Figure 9]. It also

depicts an inverted landscape, but

Mariele Neudecker, Unpublished Artist Statement, . Mariele Neudecker, Email to Celina Jeery, July , . Juan Cruz, Realising the Virtual, Make: The Magazine of Womens Art 83 (May ): .

Figure 14, Mariele Neudecker, 4.7 km = ~ 3 Miles o r ~ 2.5 Nautical Miles, 2009


23/41

this time it is o a large tree, sub-

merged in thick and murky og. It

similarly speaks o distances, o our

inability to comprehend the truth o

its scale and inversion, but it also o-

cuses upon the distance o time, o

an ancient, primordial geology. This

antediluvian landscape does not be-

long to us: it lives beyond our pres-

ence and yet is so majestic and tan-

gible somehow, that it enters into

the contemporary realm. Temporal-

ity is subverted and instead we are

encouraged to contemplate time as

not just relative, but as an illusion,

a reinvention o the world which

is at once wondrous, curious and

melancholic too: melancholic or an

ungraspable and truly unknowable

universe. There are then (at least)

two kinds o time and nature at work

here: ancient and present, real and

illusory, in which the viewer presides

over an uncanny and unearthly pres-

ence. Here, ethereal landscapes that

are at once portents and scientic

inquiries dovetails with the preter-

natural, conjuring an experience

which Homi Bhabha identies as

that which resides between rapture

(aura) and the everyday or that

which is negotiated (agora), or

art, in the unresolvable side-by-

sideness o insight and insouciance

in that uneasy space and time in

between birth and death, opens up

a space o survival in the interstices

between aura and agora.33

Sarah Walko was born in Pittsburgh,

Pennsylvania and now lives and

works in New York City.34 Walkos

work explores the object as a site

o memory and preservation. In

the spirit o the collector, Walko

amasses genealogies o objects that

evoke curiosity and wonderment.

She is currently working on new

sculptures, drawings, sound and

multimedia lm projects, as well as a

book that draw rom histories o col-

lecting and particularly, o museums

o Natural History. Her site-specic

installation orPreternatural, It is

least what one ever sees, a mixed

media sculptural installation with

sound, ollows this trajectory and

incorporates the artist intuitively

responding to Natural History col-

lections. The installation comprises

custom-made wooden drawers

containing hundreds o test tube

sculptures, microscope slides, plants,

sh, actuators, clock motors, min-

iature landscapes, sound, and clear

gel pods that ascend to the ceiling.

The ty or so small glass vials hung

rom the ceiling, containing clear gel,

create yet another perspective o an

upside down world: o seas alling

rom the sky. These miniature tides

suggest the possibility o a journey,

in which we stand at the edge o a

voyage.

Walko is a published poet and em-

ploys a literary stance to rame the

work as is indicated in her lengthy

title o this piece. It is least what one

ever seesis subtitled:

It is very least what one ever sees

(all that we share in these drawers)(myelin sheath) (birds linking

landscapes)

(and nets hold light and dark clouds,

centuries, weather satellites)

(they seep) (static, silence heresy)

Homi K. Bhaba, Aura and Agora: On Negotiating Rapture and Speaking Between, In Soph ia Shaw and Richard Francis, eds., Negotiating Rapture: The Power of Art to Transform Lives (Chi-

cago: Museum o Contemporary Art, ). Sarah Walko attained her M FA rom Savannah College o Art and Design and her BA rom University o Maryland, College Park. She is currently the Executive Director o the Triangle Arts

Association, a non-prot arts organization in Brooklyn, New York and a writer or White Whale Review, an online literary journal. She has participated in numerous artists workshops and resi-

dency programs and works as an Art Director with the independent lm collective Santasombra which has shown a t numerous international lm estivals, including the International Berlin

Film Festival and the Latin American Film Festival. Recently her work has been shown in group exhibitions at the WORK gallery, Brooklyn, New York; The Last Supp er Festival, Brooklyn, New

York; and the El Museo De Arte in El Salvador.

Figure 15: Sarah Walko, It is least what one ever sees, detail, 2011]


24/41

1 2

Furthermore, there are a plethora

o reerences to the written word

in Walkos work: she wraps, shards,

cuts, and rips words rom books. For

Susan Stewart, the book is an object

o longing which acts as metaphors

o containment, o exteriority and

interiority, o surace and depth, o

covering and exposure, o tak-

ing apart and putting together.35

Similarly, Walkos works conjure an

impulse or other worlds, inversionsand ruptures o one reality or an-

other. Here, we are presented with

another nature, a nature which, like

Neudecker, speaks o the timeless-

ness o time, o the constant tension

between lie and death, o a world

which values and reveals, albeit

obliquely, the unknown. As her

titles suggest, we are meant to get

lost in the meandering, to relish

in that which is mysterious to us, to

be quiet and curious. Here, I dont

speak o lost in the geographic

sense, but the situation o losing

onesel in a similar manner to the

Romanic disposition or wandering,

o intentionally losing the sel in

that which is unknown only to also

discover it again. As Rebecca Solnitt

argues, getting lost is about the

unamiliar appearing.36

Walkos highly intricate installa-

tions comprise o many hundreds,

i not thousands, o tiny, disparate

sculptural and live objects that seek

to exist outside o natural logic.

Vials, microscope slides, and glass

test tubes are key objects in many o

her works including It is least, Glass

Orchestra (2008) [Figure 16] and

Walking Up a Down Room (2008)

[Figure 17] all o which explore the

heritage o museums o Nature.

Vestiges o Victorian collecting prac-

tices abound, both revealing and

concealing their contents: moss,

string, a key, pebbles, and torn text

neatly occupy their vials but appear

in such abundance that they be-

came nearly impossible to read. In

It is least, micro landscapes on clock

motors gently rotate, while the ac-

tuators slowly tap the vials to create

a gentle ping sound. In the centre,

an ocean is miniaturized within a sh

tank, containing sh and the small

clear pods which rise and ascend

to the ceiling. It is reminiscent o

the cabinet o curiosities, yet its

mischievous content and lyrical

presentation produce a constellation

o eects, rather than an exclusively

object-based inquiry.

Walkos worlds within worlds com-

prise o live fora and auna, text,

and other ragments o matter:

shells, eathers, and beads amongst

them. James Cliords description

o Surrealism as an aesthetic that

values ragments, curios collec-

tions, unexpected juxtapositions,

that work to provoke the maniesta-

tion o extraordinary realities drawn

rom the domains o the erotic, the

exotic and the unconscious, is atplay here.37 Like the work o Ameri-

can Surrealist Joseph Cornell, there

is both a mystery and melancholy

within the dynamics o Walkos col-

lection: torn ragments, texts that

Figure 16, Sarah Walko, Glass Orchestra, 2008

Figure 17, Sarah Walko, Walking Up a Down Room , 2008

Susan Stewart, The Miniature, On Longing: Narratives o the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection (Durham: Duke University Press, ), []. Rebecca Solnit,A Field Guide to Getting Lost(New York: Penguin Books, ), . James Cliord, On Ethnographic Surrealism, Comparative Studies in Society and History 23.4 (Oct. ): []. Stewart, The Miniature, . Sarah Walko, Unpublishd Artist Statement, .


25/41

are unread and unreadable, collec-

tions o mundane things that are

reconsidered as worthy enough to

hold on to and redisplay.

The dynamic o the miniature and

the gigantic is an important one

or Walko, whose works are reli-

ant on the verbose and multiplying

signicance o that which is tiny and

supposedly insignicant.38 As the

artist describes, These tiny worlds

and words fuctuate between micro

and macro and simply say, You are

nowhere else right now but here

and this is the invention o ques-

tions.39 Although some o Walkos

works are contained within boxes

or ramed within the context o

stop-motion animation, the majority

are installation practices in which

the works spill out: alling, climb-

ing, reaching out into the space o

the gallery in unwieldy proportions

and yet always delicate in sensibil-

ity. As in Neudeckers and Musiols

work, there is an interplay o the

micro- and macro-cosmic: o matter

inverting and receding while simul-

taneously unurling and exploding in

magnitude.

There is a narrative compulsion

at work in the act o collecting: 40

gestures or imaginings as to where

these things came rom that we try

and piece together. The materials

are oten humble, as in Cornells

work such as Untitled Pharmacy

(1942), but collected with such en-

thusiasm and articulated with such

care and intricacy that they become

as precious as an alchemists.41 Like

Cornell too, Walko is a collector in

the true sense: obsessive almost in

the sheer quantity and inclination

towards the ragments and rag-

mentation o things. Likewise, while

her method o collecting is system-

atized, the character o her displays

are complicated and elaborate,

Figure 18, Anne Katrine Senstad, The Sugarcane Labyrinth, 2011

Peter Schwenger, The Tears of Things: Melancholy and Physical Objects (Minneapolis: University o Minnesota Press, ), . Walter Hopps, Chests and Cabinets, in Joseph Cornell: Shadowplay Eterniday, ed. Lynda Roscoe Hartigan et alia (New York: Thames and Hudson, ), .

Figure 19, Anne Katrine Senstad,The Sugarcane Labyrinth, 2011


26/41

1 4

somehow cancelling and voiding

the categories and semblances o

the original meaning o the object.

Here, mystery leads to a nostalgia

or things past, or the railty o

memory and the ungraspable nature

o the natural world.

Walkos nature-objects are amiliar,

not rare or precious but colloquial:

we know them, live with them, and

have memories about them, but their

assemblage and juxtaposition, their

exaggerated presence, disclose

a hidden aspect, an untold narra-

tive, play, and story. It is within the

perception o the viewer that these

stories may be re-animated, but as

we struggle to comprehend and to

know, we experience longing and,

ultimately, loss, so that we can never

identiy with the object, which re-

sults in the dual presence o sadness

and sweetness that such melancholy

inquiries inspire.42

At the Museum o Nature, Anne

Katrine Senstad presents a video

piece that explores a new kind o

nature: one that is recovering rom

the ravages o ecological and social

disaster. Duration and dilapidation

o the natural and a built sphere

play an important role in Senstads

works that concern post-Katrina,

New Orleans. In The Light House,

created or KK Projects (December

2007 to March 2008), Senstad punc-

tuated the debris o an abandoned

and derelict home in the St. Roch

neighborhood with industrial oce

lights. They create unusual ormal

interactions amidst the chaos, glow-

ing to reveal the nuances o the

personal remains: toys and sections

o urniture that once lived in the

space. As the daylight changes into

night, the light becomes the only

living presence in the house. In

the site-specic earth project, The

Sugarcane Labyrinth (2009) [Figure

Schwenger, The Tears of Things, .

Figure 21, Anne Katrine Senstad, The Sugarcane Labyrinth, 2011


27/41

19] Senstad explores the theme o

recovery and reverence by develop-

ing a 1.4 acre sugarcane labyrinth

on a arm in Theriot, Louisiana. Sen-

stad created the work in 2009 as a

living sculpture/agricultural land art

project over the course o 6 months.

The labyrinth a continuing earth

art project engages with local

arming strategies in an act o sus-

tainability, puriying the excessive

salt in the soil that has been caused

by erosion. It also signies a spiri-

tual path in which one is invited to

become lost in the landscape.

One o the creative acets o the

project is a video o the making and

experience o the labyrinth. Far rom

a documentary, the 12-minute video

explores the concept o the path

central to the labyrinth: its multi-

directional lines o movement, which

render purposeul navigation utile

and enhance the giddy excitement

and ear o getting lost. Passages

o time are observable [Figure 20]:

the changing o the seasons and

the growth o the labyrinth, but

disorientation and timelessness

are both pervasive as we move

gently through a space which is as

dislocated as the areas obliterated

by Hurricane Katrina. As we move

through the green undergrowth,

a pink ribbon is gently interwoventhrough the cane walls, articulating

the artists presence and an uncanny

articiality that is playul and whimsi-

cal [Figure 21].

Andrew Wrights43 works may be

described as multi-tiered inquiries

into the nature o perception, pho-

tographic structures and technolo-

gies, and the ways we relate to an

essentially mediated but primar-

ily visual world. Wright uses the

photographic medium but works

across disciplines: lm, installation,

and sculpture amongst them. O

late, Wright has been concerned

with ideas o darkness and the void,

oten with monumental and sub-

lime images o natures drama, as

in the Falling Water series (2010).

In Coronae (2011) [Figure 23] an

eulgent burst o light in black-

ness has been produced by drilling

a minute hole in a canister o lm

which is then exposed, developed,

and re-photographed in digital

ormat. For Wright, black is both

surace and space . . . other spaces

and places . . . alling in between

these two things.44 Wrights large

scale-photographic installation, Nox

Borealis, eatured in Preternatural,

continues this inquiry by eaturing

an Arctic snow scene at night.

Nox Borealisis comprised o twin

images, one on top o the other: a

large black colour eld o total dark-

ness and the other, an inverted im-

age o the Arctic at night, depictingthe black sky with a thin lm o snow

acting as a horizon line [Figures 24a

and 24b]. A system o lighting within

the exhibition space creates the illu-

sion o a whiteout: a visual blurring

caused by excessive blustery snow.

Here, the pictorial dynamic turns

outwards, addressing and inviting

the spectator as a participant in a

remote and ominous landscape.

The images were taken in Iqaluit,

the capital o Nunavut, in 2010-11.

The artist was interested in travelling

north to experience a sense o scale

and time that is totally disorientingand utterly deceptive. The series

evolves rom Wrights overarching

concern or illusionism, wherein the

viewer is enticed to participate in a

constant perceptual loop: in which

Andrew Wright has exhibited both nationally and internationally, with exhibitions at the University o Caliornia, Berkeley, Oakville Galleries, Photo Miami, Roam Contemporary (New York), ARCO (Madrid), Presentation

House, Vancouver and the Art Gallery o Calgary. He has also held residencies, including the Ban Centre and Braziers Workshop (UK), and as a war artist with the Canadian Forces Artist Program aboard Canadian warship

H.M.C.S. Toronto. He is the ounding Artistic Director or Contemporary Art Forum Kitchener and Area (CAFKA). In Wright won the Ernst & Young Great Canadian Printmaking Competition and in he was named

a semi-inalist or the Sobey Art Award. He has received grants rom the Canada Council or the Arts, The Waterloo Regional Arts Fund, and the Ontario Arts Council. Critical acclaim or his work can be ound in publications

such as Canadian Art, Border Crossings, and The Globe & Mail. Michael Hansen, Opening: Andrew Wright [interview with A ndrew Wright], Canadian Art Connected, May , : http://www.artsync.ca/opening-andrew-wright/.

Figure 24a, Andrew Wright, Nox Borealis(Detail), 2011

Figure 24b, Andrew Wright, Nox Borealis(Detail), 2011

Figure 23, Andrew Wright, Coronae, 2011


28/41

1 6

we question how we know and see.

In this regard, its important to ac-

knowledge the scale and sculptural

dimensionality o his work: there

is a reversal o gure and ground

on such an expansive scale that it

meets the viewers bodily awareness

with immersion. Subject matter slips

in and out o the viewers compre-

hension as the illusion o nothing-

ness and an inverted snow-scape

morph into a moment o immersion

or the viewer.

Time is presented as a delusion in

the Arctic as our sense o space and

bodily relationship to the ground is

re-oriented. There is a silence and

stillness that results, which eels

remote to the renzied visuality o a

media-saturated culture and hence

speaks more to the contempla-

tion o an integrative condition o

being. As we ollow the inverted

horizon line through the serialized

images we walk in and through the

landscape, bringing our attention to

the integration o the seen, heard

and thought into one panoramic

whole.45

The contemplation o nature has

had a long discourse in the history

or art: here it is rendered as sus-

tained observation, refection uponthe interrelatedness o nature which

collides with its sublime and terriy-

ing lonely Other. Reminiscent again

o Casper David Friedrichs Monk by

the Sea (1809), the viewer becomes

the small and silent gure whose

presence is indistinct amidst the

enormity o natures horizon. Mys-

terious and inexplicable, Friedrichs

painting evokes the insignicance

o man through the solitude o a

gure, a method at play in Wrights

vast and remote landscape.46 It is

within the latter thought that we

may also consider the mythological

resonance o these images: a poetic

expression o what is elemental and

brutal to the Arctic as both an image

and concept. Wright does not seek

the picturesque as there is some-

thing uncertain and dystopic even in

his personal subversion o being on

top o the world, which results in

images that are ar rom comortable

and amiliar. It is here that we locate

the preternatural: in the primeval

and even, predatory nature o this

desolate scape. We are poised to

recognize and accept the powerul

orces o nature in direct dialogue

with its ragility, the thin snowy line

which brings something new: an

expression o contemporary anxiet-

ies about its disappearance. There

is something so remote and incalcu-

lable about this place, this other side

o the world which most o us will

never access, but which is as crucial

to our panoramic sense o sel.

The Aurora Borealis has been a

wonder o the preternatural since

the sixteenth century, and here

is it re-created as a band o light,

a primal gesture o how remote

nature can be experienced in the

twenty-rst century. At times, the

image slips in between ormless

black and the incandescent white

on black, in a manner not dissimilar

to Marie-Jeanne Musiol. Again, the

micro-cosmic and macro-cosmic col-

lide and the reality o this earthly

Eleanor Rosch, I you Depict a Bird, Give It Space to Fly: On Mind, Meditation, and Art, in Jacquelynn Bass and Mary Jane Jacob, eds., Buddha Mind in Contemporary Art(Berkeley:

University o Caliornia Press, ), []. David Blayney Brown, Romanticism (London: Phaidon Press, ), .

Figure 25, Shin Il Kim, Moment to Moment, 2011


29/41

world is blurred by the apparition o

a landscape that is emblematic o

an elementary consciousness, bothproound and moving. It is not the

object but our experience o the

uniquely dierent landscape that lo-

cates them within the preternaturals

push and pull between simultaneous-

ly grasping and revoking the mag-

nitude o the universe. Expansive in

scale and without a raming device,

Nox Borealisengages the entirety o

the image and addresses the viewer

as physically embodied but localized.There is adventure at work in this re-

lationship: we enter an unknown void

and experience the super-sensible

substrates o our imagination.

The work o Shin Il Kim, a Korean

artist based in New York City, com-

prises the third installment o thePreternaturalexhibit. Kims works

are largely concerned with the act

o contemplation: the subtle but

concentrated engagement o the

senses and the interconnectedness

o experience in the immediate

here and now as a counterpoint to

the renzied media-saturated world.

At the Patrick Mikhail Gallery, Kim

displays Invisible Masterpiece (2004)

(308, loop) [Figure 26], a three-channel video which originates rom

708 pressed line drawings on paper

that then act as a basis or stop-

motion animation. The installation

comprises three projections side by

side, each depicting a scene rom

the Metropolitan Museum o Art,[Figure 27]. The rst is o a group o

people in a Modern Art room who

essentially stand motionless and with

deep consideration, the second is

o a person walking back and orth

intensely observing a single work,

and the third is o a smaller group

o individuals who are viewing a

room o Van Gogh paintings at close

range. Kim only presents the outlines

o people viewing art without theactual artworks there, so that they

appear to be continuously looking at

a void o empty white space.

Figure 26, Shin Il Kim, Invisible Masterpiece, 2004


30/41

1 8

The three animated scenes recall a

Greek rieze, a sculpture in low relie

that quietly unurls a procession

o strangers in communion, each

bearing witness to the customs and

ceremonies associated with the act

o experiencing art. Yet, while these

characters maybe considered a trib-

ute to Kantian aesthetics o disinter-

estedness, to dispassionate obser-

vation, Kims intention is to subvert

this very logic by evoking the poten-

tial o reverie. Thus, the ostensible

removal o a ocal point (the MET

artworks), and hence a subject and

narrative, creates an opportunity to

mediate upon the conditions o dis-

engagement and receptivity. Kims

process is key as it creates a unique

image o subtle, fickering charac-

ters, poised between the act o en-

gaging with the artworks (that must

now be imagined) and a perpetual

state o negation. Kim employs bare

spaces or what might more accu-

rately be described as an aesthetic

o reduction to oster a sense o

wonder and proundity. He entices

the viewer to ocus on what is barely

perceptible, the delicate glimmers

that create an undulating rhythm

throughout the projection, shoring

the light into an experience that

can only be described as intensely

sensory. [Figure 28].

Comprising o three exhibitions at

venues across Ottawa: the Museum

o Nature, St. Brigids Centre or the

Arts and the Patrick Mikhail Gallery,

Preternaturalseeks to explore

the boundaries o the natural and

spaces where the natural and un-

natural collide. The preternatural, as

explored by these artists, disturb the

ontological boundaries o art, nature

and meaning. At the Museum o

Nature, nature is mediated, inversed

and ragmented so as to render it

unnatural and exceptional. Here,

the conusion between animate

and inanimate is a primary concern,

a surreality which unites with the

preternaturals love or reveling in

the mysterious: bizarre ragments,

unreadable words, objects o absurd

scale, and distortions o the relativ-

ity o time and space. The three

installations at St. Brigids explore

multiple spiritual conditions: aith;

meditation; syncretism; the ine-

able, the miraculous; and rapture

but rom a post-secular perspective.

For the viewer, these works create

a push and pull between that which

maybe grasped and that which is

suspended in a state o wonder-

ment. Shin Il Kims (Korea/USA) ani-

mated video projections and draw-

ings at the Patrick Mikhail Gallery

bridges the spectral inquiries at St.

Brigids and the subversions o the

natural world at the Museum o Na-

ture exhibit. Kims white gures are

so sot and indistinct that they also

seem to foat in ront o the viewer

like apparitions, poised or interac-

tion, but suspended in an unknown,

ethereal state. Collectively, these

works o art exist within the olds o

classicatory thresholds: both beyond

and between nature and supernature;

human and animal; vegetable and

mineral; living and dead.




31/41

W I L D E R N E S S

O N T O L O G Y

L E V I R . B R YA N T

Perhaps wilderness is an ad-

equate name to allude to the being

o being. To name the being o

being is to allude to that which is

common to all existence. It is to

name the common being or essence

that is supposedly characteristico all entities and their relations to

one another. In this regard, the

term wilderness is exemplary, or

being, existence, is a vast wilder-

ness. Yet what this might mean

and how this thesis is to be taken

remains to be seen. I I emphasize

that the name wilderness alludes

to the being o being, then this is to

emphasize that this name is not the

only possible name o being, nor is

it a conceptually univocal signica-

tion that captures the essence o

the being o being once and or

all. Rather, in alluding to the being

o being, wilderness is hopeully

a poetically potent metaphor or

intuiting or imagining that which is

most characteristic o being as such.

As such, other names o being are

possible.

However, in having proposed this

name or the being o being I must

proceed with care. In ordinary lan-

guage our tendency is to contrast

wilderness with civilization. Here

wilderness is conceived in topologi-

cal terms. On the one hand, there

is the domain o civilization. Civi-

lization is conceived as consisting

o social relations, meaning, moral

agency, language, norms, signs, and

so on. Civilization is thought as a

place where people live amongst

one another as well as a set o

capacities said to be unique to

humans (language, moral agency,

meaning, etc). On the other hand,

wilderness is conceived negatively

as that place outside o civilization.

Wilderness is here conceived as

the world o stones, trees, plants,

remote islands and orests, and

animals where people do not dwell

and where the land has not yet been

cultivated or exploited. Where

civilization is perhaps governed by

norms and meaning, the wilderness

is thought to be characterized by

brute and mechanical causality. In

this regard, the wilderness is a place

where one goes, usually in a our-

wheel drive vehicle, wearing special

clothing and carrying a backpack.

Marie-Jeanne Musiol, The Burning Bush no. 4. Artist Project, published in Preix Photo (Toronto/Spring, 2007). Captures inside the light ield. 22.5 cm. x 42.5 cm.


32/41

2 0

Insoar as humans and cultural enti-

ties are themselves beings, it ollows

that wilderness cannot be some-

thing that is other than or that ex-

cludeshumans. I wilderness names

the being o being, then it ollows

that human beings, civilization, and

all that comes with civilization are

also o the wilderness. Yet i this

is the case, then the topological

conception o the wilderness must

be abandoned. As that which is

common to all beings, wilderness,

is not a place to which we can go,

or wherever we are we alreadyare

in the wilderness. Wilderness is

not a place that can be reached, it

is not the site o dark Lovecratian

dramas, nor is it a place rom which

we are alienated. Rather, wilderness

is all that is and we are immediately

within it even when walking in Times

Square in New York City. While

in being or wilderness there are

certainly places where there are no

humans, civilization is nonetheless

not something outside wilderness.

Rather, civilizations are one orma-

tion within the wilderness among

others. The great storm on Jupiter

is another.

Yet i language so ineluctably draws

us to think wilderness as something

other than and outside o civiliza-tion, i it draws us so persistently to

think civilization as one domain and

the wilderness as anotherdomain,

why choose such a misleading term

to name the being o being? I we

shit rom the register o ordinary

language to the register o phenom-

enological experience, an answer

to this question begins to emerge.

When we do go to those regions

outside the city, suburbs, and

countryside, when we hike Glacier

National Park or camp along the Ap-

palachian Trail or in Yellowstone Na-

tional Park, we experience our being

in the world and relationship to

other beings in a very dierent way.

In the city, or example, we might

experience ourselves as sovereigns

that have arranged the world orour

ends. Everything about us is either

a tool that we have constructed and

that is but a carrier o our intentions,

or a screen upon which we project

our meanings, or a resource that

we draw upon or our aims. Thus,

there is nothing about the scalpel

that intrinsicallymakes it a scalpel.

Rather, the scalpel gets this unction

through the use we make o it. Jack

the Ripper ound a very dierent

unction or this instrument. Like-

wise, there is nothing about gold or

the dollar bill that intrinsicallygives

it this value, rather it is because we

value these things that they take on

the value they have. In the city non-

humans are experienced as passive

stus that we arrange or our own

ends and upon which we projectmeaning. We experience our-

selvesunconsciously, o course

as absolute masters or sovereigns o

a world that is purely passive beore

our will. Like a king that is transcen-

dent to his subjects, we experience

ourselves as transcendent to non-

humans such that we arrange them

in terms o our own ends. Within

this ramework, there is no sense

in which other beings are on equal

ontological ooting with us.

Things are quite dierent when we

visit the wilderness in the ordinary

language sense o the term. When I

camp at Yellowstone National Park,

I no longer experience mysel as

a sovereign o nonhuman beings,

but rather as amongst nonhuman

beings. I experience mysel as a

being amongstother beings, rather

than as a lord o beings. Initially

this might sound rather idyllic, as

when we speak o communing with

nature, yet this amongstness

signies something that has dark or

sinister dimensions as well. In the

wilderness o Yellowstone National

Park, or example, I nd mysel in

circumstances where it is possible

or me to be eaten by wolves or

mauled by a bear. Where, in civiliza-

tion, all other things are things that

I eat, in the wild I experience the

possibility o mysel being eaten.

In the city I easily escape rom the

weather by heading indoors, while

in the wild the weather becomes a

humbling orce with which I mustcontend. In the city everything

seems to be posited beore my

knowing or comprehending gaze

and everything seems to be ar-

ranged or the sake o my instru-


33/41

mental gaze. By contrast, in the

wilderness I nd mysel regarded

by beings other than humansthe

wolves, bears, birds, and so on

and in a eld o languages and signs

that I scarcely understand. What

does the howl I hear o yonder

signiy? Should I be alarmed by

the hoot o that owl? Why did the

orest suddenly grow quiet? What

caused that branch to snap? Are

those approaching clouds a danger

or git? Was this trail created by hu-

mans or deer? What are those birds

talking about in their songs? In the

wilderness I am no longer a sover-

eign or master, but a being among

other beings. In short, in the wilds

we encounter other beings as both

agencies and as entities with which

we must negotiate.

The experience o the wilderness

is still too indebted to the ordinary

language sense o the term as

something opposed to or other than

civilization, yet nonetheless it con-

tains a kernel o ontological truth

worth preserving. The experience

o the wilderness at least has the

virtue o dislodging the ontological

sovereignty o humans and bringing

us beore an experience o beings

where we are not lords o a world

composed o passive nonhumans,

but where we are among a variety

o dierent agencies with ends very

dierent than our own and where

beings are not simply an object o

ourregard or gaze, but where we

too are objects o the regard or

gaze o others. I we rescue this

kernel rom the domain o anthropo-

centric experience and transorm it

into a generalontological concept,

Andrew Wright, Standing Wave #6, Digital C-Prints, 127 x 190cm, 2007


34/41

2 2

wilderness would signiy being as

a pluralityo agencies, without on-

tologicalhierarchyone that might

reuse any biurcation o being into

nature and culture.

The concept o wilderness as an

ontological concept thus has three

components. First, wilderness

signies the absence oontological

hierarchy in the order o existence.

While there are indeed assemblages

where some entities are more domi-

nant over other entities than others,

there are no lords or sovereigns o

being. Humans are but one type o

being among others. Second, wil-

derness signies the reusal o a bi-

nary opposition between nature and

culture. While there are certainly

natural assemblages that are entirely

divorced rom human social orders

(the planet Neptune, or example),

there are no cultural assemblages

thoroughly divorced rom nonhuman

entities. Culture is one more orma-

tion in the wilderness among others,

not an ontologically unique domain

outside o nature. Third, the con-

cept o wilderness emphasizes the

distinct agency o the many entities

that populate the universe, reusing

to locate agency only in humans.

Rather than seeing the nonhuman

objects o the world as screens uponwhich we project our human mean-

ings such that these nonhumans are

conceived as passive patients o our

projections, wilderness ontology

invites us to encounter the agency

o nonhumans, to adopt theirpoint

o view, and to encounter these

entities not in their identity to our

concepts, but rather in their alterity.

Compare the way we think about

dollar bills and the wolves o Yel-

lowstone National Park. The value

o the dollar bill resides not in its

paper, not in its ink, but arises rom

society and the way in which society

projects or coners value onto the

dollar bill. The dollar bill is a vehicle

orcarrierovalue, but there is

nothing intrinsic about the material-

ity o the bill that has value. Were

society to be destroyed the paper

and ink would remain but the value

would disappear rom existence. In

this regard, rom the standpoint o

ontology, what is important about

the dollar bill is the manner in which

it carries human intentions or mean-

ings, not anything to do with its ma-

teriality. It is or this reason that the

value o the dollar bill need not be

carnally embodied in paper and ink,

but can exist virtually in computer

data banks or in bank books. The

thingliness o the dollar bills paper

and ink is secondary to the being o

its virtual content. Matters are very

dierent with our wolves. Unlike

the dollar bill, the eatures, actions,

and behaviors o the wol cannotbe reduced to human intentions,

concepts, or meanings. Where

there is nothing in the dollar bill

that can really surprise us because

it already comes rom us, we can be

and are, by contrast, quite surprised

by the wol as it harbors powers and

behaviors that do not issue rom

us. There is a being here that is

irreducible to human intentions and

meanings.

Ever since Kant, Hegel, and Feuer-

bach, the dominant paradigm o

critical analysis has consisted in

demonstrating that what we take to

be eatures o beings themselves

are, in act, projections o human

minds or social constructions as in

the case o the value o dollar bills.

There are certainly a whole class o

beings like dollar bills where this

mode o explanation is entirely

appropriate. Moreover, this model

o critique has been tremendously

powerul in ghting racial inequality,

gender inequality, and a whole host

o other noxious essentialisms by

showing how the groundings in na-

ture upon which these inequalities

are oten deended are in act social

constructions capable o being oth-

erwise. These are orms o critique

that are both tremendously valuable

and that ought not be abandoned.

However, this dominant paradigm

o analysis has also had the unin-

tended consequence o occlud-

ing the thingliness o things, theirspecic contributions, thereby

making it dicult or us to discern

what things contribute to the world.

The dominant paradigm o critical

theory tends to reduce the world to


35/41

an alienated image o ourselves in a

mirror wherein we do not recognize

ourselves. The task thus becomes

to show that what seems to issue

rom the mirror in act issues rom

us. The world thus becomes our

own text, without the other beings

o the world contributing anything

beyond their unction as carriers or

vehicles or our alienated meanings.

Yet in an age where cl imate catas-

trophe increasingly approache

jeffery preternatural ebook

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