Cryptosphere Work in Progress

Artist Residency and Exhibition at the Royal Geographical Society, London 2007 - 2008

Opening: Friday 4 April 2008, 6-9pm; --- Exhibition: 7 April – 9 May 2008

Exhibition hours: Monday to Friday 10AM to 5PM

Below is a excerpt from a conversation between Simeon Nelson art critic Rebecca Geldard published in the catalogue (ISBN 987-0-9558721-0-5)

"The main installation is a cartographically inspired architectural grid, attempting to contain ambiguous ornaments that, unwilling to be held by the grid’s rigid embrace, spill out over the pavilion floor. Someone with an understanding of the cultural significance of the grid as a symbol of Western imperialism will read this exhibition differently to someone who does not.

The Ptolemaic, and later, the Jeffersonian grid, were powerful symbolic and empirical aids to the expansion of European power into uncharted regions of the world. The grid had a talismanic power to claim ownership of the wild. In America, in the late eighteenth century, a square mile grid was thrown like a conceptual net over the continent, disregarding mountains and other topographic features. In the sixteenth century, the age of European exploration, the Ptolemaic grid was seen as a cipher for the crucifix and was conflated with the Christianising of savage peoples as its relentless geometry spread into unknown lands.⁴

The modular units of my grid are arranged as a sort of cruciform crystalline pyramid which loosely references various types of sacred architectural geometry from the stupa to the cathedral. It is organised vaguely as a human body, with head, feet and outstretched arms somewhat like the Ebstorf map from 1231, in which the Christ figure encompasses the world, head in the East, feet and hands at the other cardinal points.

There are portals or frames on each side organised to the same modular grid. They are my response to the attempts of early modern cartographers to fit the Earthly Paradise within the earthly sphere, which often resulted in a weird non-place: part of and yet not part of the Earth. The ornaments spilling over the floor are based on numerous sources, from the baroque cartouches on seventeenth century maps to the biological illustration of Ernst Haeckel and the three-pronged worlds of medieval cartography. They could be read as being part of the expansion or as fleeing from it."

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	Cryptosphere Work in Progress Artist Residency and Exhibition at the Royal Geographical Society, London 2007 - 2008 Opening: Friday 4 April 2008, 6-9pm; --- Exhibition: 7 April – 9 May 2008 Exhibition hours: Monday to Friday 10AM to 5PM Below is a excerpt from a conversation between Simeon Nelson art critic Rebecca Geldard published in the catalogue (ISBN 987-0-9558721-0-5) "The main installation is a cartographically inspired architectural grid, attempting to contain ambiguous ornaments that, unwilling to be held by the grid’s rigid embrace, spill out over the pavilion floor. Someone with an understanding of the cultural significance of the grid as a symbol of Western imperialism will read this exhibition differently to someone who does not. The Ptolemaic, and later, the Jeffersonian grid, were powerful symbolic and empirical aids to the expansion of European power into uncharted regions of the world. The grid had a talismanic power to claim ownership of the wild. In America, in the late eighteenth century, a square mile grid was thrown like a conceptual net over the continent, disregarding mountains and other topographic features. In the sixteenth century, the age of European exploration, the Ptolemaic grid was seen as a cipher for the crucifix and was conflated with the Christianising of savage peoples as its relentless geometry spread into unknown lands.⁴ The modular units of my grid are arranged as a sort of cruciform crystalline pyramid which loosely references various types of sacred architectural geometry from the stupa to the cathedral. It is organised vaguely as a human body, with head, feet and outstretched arms somewhat like the Ebstorf map from 1231, in which the Christ figure encompasses the world, head in the East, feet and hands at the other cardinal points. There are portals or frames on each side organised to the same modular grid. They are my response to the attempts of early modern cartographers to fit the Earthly Paradise within the earthly sphere, which often resulted in a weird non-place: part of and yet not part of the Earth. The ornaments spilling over the floor are based on numerous sources, from the baroque cartouches on seventeenth century maps to the biological illustration of Ernst Haeckel and the three-pronged worlds of medieval cartography. They could be read as being part of the expansion or as fleeing from it." --------------------------- back to Cryptosphere main page