Celestial Bodies (Eclipse) Installed at CAS Gallery 2022

FESCH.TV INFORMIERT:

A celestial body is a naturally occurring physical entity, such as a sun, planet, moon, or asteroid that exists in the observable universe. Over the course of human history, there has existed an evolving relationship between us and our most influential celestial bodies; the sun and the moon. They inspire humanity, they impact us by their very existence, but still, historically in myth and story, we have given them extra power by imbuing them with personality, motive and even deification.
In the case of this work, Sol and Luna allow us to see them in their humanised forms as they travel their intersecting paths across an idyllically scenic yet brooding realm. They perform at points of the day, invoking aspects of their dualistic natures (male and female, gold and silver, fire and water) in gestures from ceremonial ritual. The work evokes the strange theatricality of old alchemical illustrations; each frame a pictorial page from a tome of magic, the graceful figures posing upon a verdant stage, directing the viewer to interpret the symbolism in their movement.
While the visual aspect of the work describes the mythological personification of these two celestial bodies, the soundscape embodies their material influence upon the Earth by using both lunar tidal patterns and solar activity data to inspire otherworldly sounds made with crystal singing bowls. The bowls are uniquely resonant having both clear natural qualities and also sounding so unusual as to have come from the cosmos itself.
Sun and moon, gold and silver, pass across the sky meeting once to ‘touch’ in an eclipse redolent of ‘conjunctio’, the alchemical marriage. While we are watching them, only once do they turn to face us and acknowledge our gaze, but even then they look through and beyond us, as if our existence doesn’t touch them at all.