Exhibition presented at Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia (EKKM), Tallinn

19 – 22.07.2018

Remote Viewing is a form of extrasensory perception: a receptive individual projects or travels out of their body to a place, object or time unknown to them, reporting back as a kind of psychic reconnaissance. This practice was part of the CIA’s Stargate Project, begun in the 1970s, that sought to competitively instrumentalize psychic research during the Cold War. The subject of one of these experiments would be handed a sealed envelope, from the test’s monitor, that contained a location and time. The monitor then verbally directed the subject to specific coordinates, asking for reports and drawings of what was seen and encountered. Any place and time was possible, even The Surface of the Sun.

As a concept, remote viewing can be positioned as a portal across time, history and personal experience. The speculative nature of this practice is equally a departure point for fictional intermingling. In this vein, events not lived first hand, or at all, can be reconfigured as malleable objects moving through time, newly and differently encountered. The works presented in the exhibition The Surface of the Sun will travel through signal, stopping by fleetingly, leaving their echoes.

Featuring: Peggy Ahwesh, Basma Alsharif, Stephanie Comilang, Annabelle Craven-Jones, Élise Florenty & Marcel Türkowsky, Saskia Holmkvist, Sam Keogh, Hanne Lippard, Maha Maamoun, Agnieszka Polska, and Aura Satz.

Graphic design: Gailė Pranckūnaitė.

Supported by: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture, Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), Żak | Branicka Gallery.

 

Works list:

Heaven’s Gate, Peggy Ahwesh, 2001, 3:53 (SD video)

Deep Sleep, Basma Alsharif, 2014, 12:45 (Super 8 on HD video)

Lumapit Sa Akin, Paraiso (Come To Me, Paradise), Stephanie Comilang, 2016, 25:46 (HD video)

html5 5htp [insomniahours], Annabelle Craven-Jones, 2017 – ongoing, (live stream broadcast platform and archive)

The Sun Experiment (Ether Echoes), Élise Florenty & Marcel Türkowsky, 2014, 34:30 (HD video)

Eight Martini, Saskia Holmkvist, 2004, 4:00 (SD video)

Kapton Cadaverine Log Entry, Sam Keogh, 2018, 21:54 (HD video)

Locus, Hanne Lippard, 2011, 4:45 (Sound work)

2026, Maha Maamoun, 2010, 9:00 (HD video)

What the Sun Has Seen, Agnieszka Polska, 2017, 7:16 (HD video)

Entangled Nightvisions, Aura Satz, 2017, 11:54 (HD video)

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*Exhibition guide available here (English).

*Exhibition guide available here (Estonian).