Last week I was invited to experiment with a pop-up gallery space in the University’s fine art studios. With my brain full of dissertation research I used the gem of an idea for tapping into the universal creative energies to create a pseudo-seance experience. Granted the white walls and open space of the room did not give the total experience but as a basic initial exploration, it was an interesting one.
I prepared the entrance of the space with two veils through which the participant had to pass to enter the area. Black lace gave a nod towards Victorian seances, as did the pencil portrait of Hilma AF Klint placed within an authentic Victorian frame on the desk inside. The veils were representative of the High Priestess tarot archetype – the idea of going ‘beyond the veil’ in order to reach the spiritual /higher or deeper plane, either subjectively or objectively depending on your view.
After crossing through the veils the participant encountered two empty chairs – representative of those no longer with us and aiming to give the idea of an absent audience, sheets of paper, drawing materials including children’s wax crayons (a nod to the inner child), ink, and coloured pencils in primary colours (considering Klint’s and Houghton’s theory of the significance of colour representation in mediumistic art). Alongside this was a table offering various tools to tap into the spiritual plane – namely a spirit box and headphones, a scrying mirror, and a planchette, along with basic instructions for their use.
Participants were invited to use these tools in making unconscious or conscious choices in mark-making on the paper provided.
The take up on the experiment was a little sparse, but the duration of the lab was short and there was little promotion other than posters on the entrance to the studio so that is to be expected.
The imagery created by the few participants is largely representational and I was quite surprised by this. The drawings are created with a narrative that a potential viewer can interpret rather than abstract movements, which would indicate that this was not an immersive experience for the participants. If you look at the automatic drawings/writings of artists such as Georgiana Houghton the marks feel much more unconsciously dictated, aiming for no clear representation. They are simply impulsive movements.
I wonder if by providing more of a sensory deprivation experience, where participants had no harsh lights, outside commotions, and others wandering past, the results would be different? I also wonder how much it depends on the sentimentalities of the person at the desk and their level of cynicism.
Interestingly, nearly everybody went for black ink rather than using colour, and the childish crayons were avoided altogether. Following the herd perhaps?
The thing that most caught my attention however was the group crit at the end of the pop-up. Upon entering the room the group of students all avoided sitting in the two empty chairs, choosing instead to lean on the wall or stand. Esoteric, occultist ideas were staged on the table in the form of the planchette etc and this seemed to transfer to the chairs -as was my original intention. Who exactly were the group leaving these chairs for? Or did they perhaps wonder if someone may already be sitting in them……………….
