This series channels the concept of Anomie; a sociological concept observing the lack of social or ethical norms within an individual amongst a homogenous group. Each sculpture in the space is in converstion with the 6 senses [sight, touch, taste, smell, sound, consciousness]. Exploring the relationship between the internal understanding of self and external structures of social order from an ASD/neurodivergent perspective.
The performance, titled Anomie Series: Obsidian [1hr 45min], looked to present the act of self-grounding ritual through disicple and sensory awarness.
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The performance, titled Anomie Series: Obsidian [1hr 45min], looked to present the act of self-grounding ritual through disicple and sensory awarness.
While reciting an ubroken reading of the the Surangama Sutra, Cen recived a collaborative tattoo centered around the Vajra Dojre by two artist simultaneously. With the added projection of thier voice, heartbeat, and internal vibrations through a contact mic; the performcance enveloped the the audience into a liminal space creating a confrontation between the body and the subconsious.
Installation Photos: Euree Hong | Opening Photos: Bibs Moreno
Comissioned Pieces for Vrtue: Capsule One / Currated by Hooz / Oct 25-27th 2024 / Melrose Botanical Garden
The opportunity to engage with vrtue was made manifest through an immersive installation, hosted by Melrose Botanical Garden. This weekend long experience presented works by artists and designers who transmute the essence of vrtue through the materiality of the work and personal philosophies. Serving as a pop up shop & sculptural installation hybrid, the space was transformed into a site for investigation and contemplation.
Capsule One’s immersive installation featured works by hooz / 01168 / Xethreal / Tatianna Hechavarria / Sterling Hedges / Marcel Humberto Monroy
Photos cortesy of hooz and Ocean Ortiz
Process
Anointment is a collaborative experimental performance work by the artists hooz and Cen Freedan O. The artists’ performers ground the room for the collective ritual through their articulation of meticulously choreographed movements, employing a refracted narrative through their bodies that begins with disjunction and culminates in transcendent nativity, set against an elegiac, choral-inspired sonic landscape.
Using the cast in this dynamic way ultimately conjures an energy of renewal, as movement is generated by modulating dualities, events across the temporal field, and navigating tumultuous currents of desire–the desire to protect, to change, to transcend base guilt feelings, to generate new life.
By enacting this ritual, the artists’ dynamic melding of archetypes and symbolism speaks to a boundary-obfuscating process of rebirth and renewal through repetition, trance, and communion with the divine. The divine here operates in the apophatic tradition, of an arrival at an internal consecration obtained through negation. But all acts of transfiguration involve a degree of sacrifice, even if they are outdated totemic paradigms that are no longer of service to our internal cosmologies.
The gallery space is essentially transformed into a vascular, otherworldly site necessary for our collective survival, as well as an arena for encoded, epigenetic messages–made manifest through the body–to be purged. At the heart of Anointment is the invocation of a devotional ancestry with the singular power to syncretize the whole spectrum of inner experience, while confronting the initiated to utilize the fullness of their observational power–to truly embody the act of ‘witnessing’. The proceedings recall an inversion of Bataille, who writes the following in the 1943 text, Inner Experience:
"The victim dies, thus the witnesses participate in an element which his death reveals. This element is what it is possible for us, along with religious historians, to call the sacred. The sacred is precisely the continuity of being revealed to those who fix their attention, in a solemn rite, on the death of a discontinuous being."
Even in moments of great upheaval, disruption, and tragedy, there is a deeper sense of unity and continuity that transcends individual existence. Witnessing, as in this case, can provide a glimpse into this profound interconnectedness and reveal glimpses of incorruptibility within all that is seemingly profane or tragic. So, in that sense, Anointment is an invitation to traverse the depths of consciousness and to participate in a rite of collective transformation.
Written By: Jasminne Morataya
Photos courtesy of Bibs Moreno, Murmmurs Gallery
