Soul Mate 180°

Artwork: Kristen Mosher Soul Mate 180° (The Other Side is Here), LACMA, 2019

Kristen Mosher’s art project Soul Mate 180° (The Other Side is Here) is an ongoing venture, or adventure. 

At the core of the project is the merging of two concepts. The first is the notion of a “geographic soul mate” defined as “an intimacy created by acknowledging distances” and “a relationship with the other side of earth not as a polarity or opposite but as a fluid, shifting continuum that extends within and beyond the planet”. The second is the antipodes—the opposite of where you find yourself. The word “antipodes” originates from the Latin idea of “feet against our feet”, of inhabitants on the other side of the globe. These foundational concepts shape Mosher’s project that seeks to explore points on the earth separated by 180°.

At the current iteration of her project showing at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Mosher has created a sculptural rendering, sourced via satellite imagery and utilising 3D printing, of a specific segment of the waves of the Indian Ocean identified as the antipode of LACMA. 

Mosher states: “The strength of Soul Mate 180° rests in the tension between what can be seen and what is imagined.”

Just imagine: your feet where they stand right now, and what’s on the other side of the globe. 

Reaching the antipodes is a tumbling down the rabbit hole with its upside down logic that’s about being able to wonder what’s on the other side than truly knowing or experiencing it first-hand. Yet Mosher’s project facilitates such an imagining, a simulated reality, simply by offering a glimpse—this tunnelling to view a wave on a vast sea. 

(source: www.kristenmosher.com)

suspended bliss

Image: Kagami Smile album, Pool of Light (2019)

Thought I’d share this beautiful and electrifying track by Kagami Smile, Suspended Bliss (When I Last Hear Your Voice) from his album Pool of Light (Dream Catalogue, 2019). I discovered him through listening to the artist Object Blue, who is pretty wonderful as well. If you’re into electronica, glitch, techno, ambient, downtempo—whatever!—check this out. Feels like listening to the future.

A Yoshitomo Nara Day

Boo…

but WTF

image: @werenotreallystrangers

Just perfect. This sums up my day…and freaking FedEx had something to do with it!

your weird

Artwork: L.E.T. (@l.e.t._les.enfants.terrible)

Another fave from artist L.E.T. (@l.e.t._les.enfants.terrible)—“Your Weird Is My Perfect”.

Truth.

the more loving one

Image: @orion_deepspace; Source: @universetoday

Reading this particular stanza just choked me up (in a good way!), from W.H. Auden’s love poem to the stars and the universe, The More Loving One:

“How should we like it were the stars

to burn

With a passion for us we could

not return?

If equal affection cannot be,

Let the more loving one be me.”

(source: www.brainpickings.org)

magic

Artwork: WRDSMTH, LA 2019

Awesome recent paste-up by WRDSMTH in Los Angeles.

falling garden

It’s spring and the gorgeous scents of orange blossom and pittosporum, especially at night, inspired me to post this—a vivid, alchemical site-specific installation titled Falling Garden, created by Swiss artists Gerda Steiner and Jörg Lenzlinger for the 2003 Venice Biennale at the 17th century San Staë church on the Grand Canal.

The suspended garden—including vegetation from around the world—was inspired by the possibility of mystical and miraculous experiences. Depicted in San Staë’s alter painting is the story of the miracle of the church’s patron saint, San Eustachio. During a hunt, the Imperial huntsman and army commander is converted to Christianity following an encounter with a stag bearing the crucified Christ, its antlers surrounded by a luminous halo.

The idea of the site being a place to experience such wonders was a touchstone for the artists transforming the space with a rain of vegetation and crystallized flowerbeds, as if it were the wilderness where the deer was encountered. 

A place where the extraordinary could occur. 

where words fail

Artwork: @buber_nebz

This kind of sums up a story I recently posted, The thought of you is everywhere (it’s a long read!). It’s a love story, but it’s also a love story about music.

universe of water particles

teamLab, 2019, Interactive Digital Installation, Sound: Hideaki Takahashi

There’s an expansiveness, freedom and openness to change in teamLab’s digital installations. 

 In their words: “teamLab believes that the digital domain can expand the capacities of art, and that digital art can create new relationships between people.” (teamLab website)

This year, a major teamLab immersive digital installation was featured at the opening of the Tank Shanghai art complex, titled Universe of Water Particles (2019); a cascading waterfall that responded to people’s “touch”. When an individual “touched” the streaming water it then flowed as if meeting a rock in a stream, which in turn caused flowers to scatter in the corresponding artwork Flowers and People, Cannot be Controlled but Live. It’s an artwork alive to the beauty of nature and its connection to humans, with a surreal edge in the use of digital technology to simulate this heightened awareness.

Using digital technology teamLab explore pre-modern Japanese notions of space, where 3-D reality was depicted as a flat/2D spatial awareness. TeamLab flip this perspective so that digital projections on flat surfaces become 3D spatial experiences. They term this spatial structuring as “ultrasubjective space”, resulting in immersive and transformative environments, where individuals engage with the work from their unique point of view. It’s also an interactive space where the individual’s very movements/behaviour can alter the artwork, becoming co-creators in its continuous unfolding. This blurring of the boundaries between the individual and the artwork is also enabled by “splitting, folding and dividing” the images/screens, creating a space of connection and fluidity, of mutability, where the artwork doesn’t feel bound by physical space and also, a sense of play and wonder. 

ways of seeing

Image: Portico Quartet’s album, Memory Streams, 2019

Been listening to Portico Quartet’s new album Memory Streams, and this gorgeous track is a fave—feels kind of like flying—Ways of Seeing. Check it out.

be me

Artwork: Kelly Akashi’s Be Me (Cultivator), 2019, cast stainless steel and flame worked borosilicate glass

A new artwork from American artist Kelly Akashi to be featured at FIAC Contemporary Art Fair in Paris this year at François Ghebaly Gallery’s booth, Be Me (Cultivator), 2019. Love her work (see my two art stories Feel Me and Ripple).

Simply exquisite.

the secret commonwealth

I’ve just begun Philip Pullman’s second volume of The Book of Dust trilogy: The Secret Commonwealth. Set in Oxford almost ten years after the end of His Dark Materials fantasy trilogy (the HBO/BBC tv series will be released in November) , the story continues the adventure of Lyra Silvertongue, now a student at Oxford, and her daemon, Pantalaimon. Pullman’s storytelling is masterful, and as with the previous books, I’m already loving it!

le bateau ivre

Artwork: Le Bateau ivre 2015 (@pejac_art)

Amazing and devastating artwork by Pejac (@pejac_art), Le Bateau ivre (2015).

And in his words: “Once upon a time in our planet...”

A cautionary tale, and quite real.

ghosteen

I didn’t know what to expect from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ new album, Ghosteen, not after barely being able to listen to The Skeleton Tree, with its raw grief and pain. The first thing that hit was Cave’s voice—it wasn’t the brittle, thready and barely able to breathe voice from the previous album. No, it’s rich and deep, with a range of effects that weave with the often sparse, electronic and piano score that reminds me more of Warren Ellis and Cave’s soundtrack collaborations. And the songs…Cave is a poet and storyteller and these songs speak of hope, light, wonder, longing and a spiritual dimension; of deeply felt experiences and dreams, but mostly, each song is a love song.

If you have the time, just listen to Ghosteen (you can stream it on SoundCloud). It’s a beautiful, surprising and haunting journey.

creativity takes courage

Writing by @jsnwrks (source: @buber_nebz)

A quote from artist Henri Matisse. And yep, it does 😊

being of everything

Artwork: Tracey Emin, Believe in Extraordinary, 2015

Great insight on creativity from Tracey Emin:

"I gave up painting, I gave up art, I gave up believing, I gave up faith. I had what I called my emotional suicide, I gave up a lot of friendships with people, I just gave up believing in life really and it’s taken me years to actually start loving and believing again. I realized that there was a greater idea of creativity. Greater than anything I could make just with my mind or with my hands, I realized there was something…the essence of creativity, that moment of conception, the whole importance, the whole being of everything and I realized that if I was going to make art it couldn’t be about…it couldn’t be about a fucking picture. It couldn’t be about something visual. It had to be about where it was really coming from."

 (Source: @_nitch)

phoenix

Artwork: Phoenix by Seth (@seth_globepainter)

Another beautiful work by Seth (@seth_globepainter), Phoenix, for the ‘Out in the Open’ mural project with @kirkgallery in Aalborg, Denmark.

Butterfly Kid

Artwork: Yinka Shonibare, Butterfly Kid (boy) IV, 2019

Love this—Yinka Shonibare’s mixed media installation, Butterfly Kid (boy) IV 2019.

British-Nigerian artist Shonibare’s work deals with issues of race, migration, post-colonialism, globalisation, and often features iconic Western art references with an ironic and playful twist. The Butterfly Kids series was inspired by environmental issues, and suggests notions of escape, endangerment, collapse, and extinction, yet also, it alludes to liberation, beauty, freedom and hope.

And perhaps that kids, in their efforts, will and knowledge, will be the creators, activists and leaders of a new world.

I loved it so much—I wrote an art story about it. Check it out.

A Yoshitomo Nara Day

Yep—so over it.