The
Alchemist's Shack II
Mildred's
Lane Session July – August 2012
As
Above So Below (Aether, Elixir, Ethanol)
Far
from Pennsylvania – both literally and metaphorically - under grey,
Northern English skies I try to reconstruct my experiences of The
Mildred's Lane Complexity from notes accumulated, interviews gleaned,
photographs taken, sounds recorded and Venn diagrams scribbled* but I
find it impossible to surmise or to 'fix' with any single account or
description. It is simply too complex.
“It's a strange place...”
the diary entry from my first day at Mildred's Lane recounts: “...
a home, an ever-evolving art work, a communal space, an ecology, a
frontier land, a wilderness...”.
But here I am, tasked with the impossible; to describe the
indescribable and my experiences of a project within it The
Alchemists Shack II...
Geographically
speaking, Mildred's Lane is a site of 96 acres located deep in the
woods of the Upper Delaware River Valley in northeastern
Pennsylvania.
“My
arrival at Mildred's Lane - after a long journey from NewYork,
through the wide, green farmland of Pennsylvania, across the Delaware
River and down a bumpy, forested dirt track – is marked first by
the sight of a giant ground hog (the size of a large family dog)
ambling slowly across my path and secondly by the sounds of a séance
creaking and shrieking from within a huge, slightly dilapidated
wooden barn...”
Historically
speaking, Mildred's Lane (or rather it's current manifestation) began
in 1998 when J. Morgan Puett (Ambassador of Entanglement) and Mark
Dion (Co-Ambassador of Entanglement) discovered the land which had
been left derelict since the death of the previous owner and lifetime
occupant, Mildred Steffens. Recognising it's unique features
and possibilities, Puett and Dion began the process of preserving the
original vernacular homestead in which Steffens had grown up, lived
and died (now known as The Mildred House).
Already in these early days of The Complexity collaborations and
projects with friends and artists were beginning to take place. One
of the first of these projects or interventions was Robert Williams's
construction - and then cathartical burning - of a
sixteen-foot giant Burnellius upon
the foundations of the main house, a ritual gesture which is echoed
at the conclusion of every project since.
“Like
an ancestral ghost of the old world, I slip into the barn and hover
behind the congregation of fellows who are watching the final minutes
of an episode from Derren Brown's Channel 4 programme The Events. My
arrival coincides with the emotionally charged 'reveal' in which
Brown deconstructs the subtle autosuggestions, imagery and
engineering behind this “psychological experiment” which led 12
members of the public to believe they were actually in communion with
a ghost... As the film ends, the barn doors rattle open and the
fellows disperse into the high July sunshine...”
Conceptually
speaking, Mildred's Lane is a socially-engaged project based around
an ethos of conviviality, creativity and comportment. When I invited
J. Morgan Puett (Ambassador of Entanglement) to describe the project
she explained that...
“...You
can't put a finger on it, it's not an institution and it's not even a
home entirely anymore although it is a home and it is a school...
it's something that is about the experience... the shared experience
that people has when they're here. That's what is really exciting for
everybody I think. What has co-evolved amongst everyone is that they
come together and they are the best they can be: it's the possibility
of re-thinking how we are in the world which is really at the heart
of it for me…”
This
synergistic “re-thinking of how we are in the world”
is manifest in every aspect of the life-work-art at Mildred's Lane;
from the rigorous deconstruction of ghost stories told around the
campfire; to the curation of kitchen utensils and general “inventive
domesticating” (otherwise known as Workstyles**);
to the design and creation of new forms or models of living - both
architectural and social. In other words, every action performed at
Mildred's Lane, be it domestic, academic or everyday, is intended to
move towards, and embody a part of, the project's holistic goals.
The
physical hub of this praxis-driven project is the main house on The
Mildred's Lane Site, designed and built in the style of the
vernacular, wooden Grange-Hall which was typical of Pennsylvania in
the late 18th
and early 19th
Centuries. Grange Halls were originally conceived as nonpartisan
community buildings, built to host a nexus of communal activity and
to promote the interests and well-being (economic, political and
social) of local people. As such it made sense to use The Grange Hall
meeting place as a blueprint for the main house at Mildred's Lane.
Designed with a communal living situation in mind the house has
evolved into much more than a shared living space, enfolding into it
an extensive library and a living, ever-growing museum of collected
objects and artworks.
“Like
a curiously layered and ever-folding dream, Mildred's Lane does not
adhere to the linear values of written language; it is a living,
organic, nebulous, many-authored entity.”
It
is within this complex context (or bubbling crucible) that the 2012
session The
Alchemists Shack II took
place. Curated and led by Robert Williams and following on from the
original session in 2009, The
Alchemist's Shack II set
out to complete the building of a small vernacular hut - an
installation which would also become a place for guests to stay –
whilst further exploring the interrelationship between alchemy,
alchemical literature, ghosts and parallel discourses in contemporary
art and science.
"Leslie
and Natalie [Mildred's
Lane Fellows] introduce
me to the hooshing schedule. On the schedule each of the fellows are
represented by an alchemical symbol they have chosen... I am
reminded, in this minutiae symbolic order, of the alchemical axiom
"As above so below"... of the correspondence between the
mundane and the sublime (mediated by the symbolic) and the way in
which this group of fellows, as elements of the alchemical process,
have been mixed together in order to perform a collective
transformation, a transmutation, a distillation..."
Another
aim of the The
Alchemists Shack II
session was the creation of a co-authored Taxonomy
of Ghosts from Popular Forms.
Through three weeks of screenings, workshops, seminars and
discussions Williams, Hilmar Schäfer
(Theorist in Residence) and the nine fellows would compile, order and
codify the various ghostly manifestations into an overall taxonomical
schema. The source material informing this taxonomy was predominantly
selected by Wiliams from British Film and Television of the 1960's
and 1970's along with the literary Ghost Stories of M.R. James. This
selection defined the perameters of the fieldwork to be undertaken by
the group, focussing their critical enquiry upon a period of rivived
interest in the occult, parapsychology and the uncanny amongst both
popular and fringe culture in Britain. Revisiting the material of
this time - as opposed to a more general, contemporary or localised
enquiry - afforded a special degree of both temporal and cultural
distance for deconstructing and analysing these forms, examined as
they were by a group of predominantly young American artists and
scholars.
In
all taxonomical schema there is an inherent interrelationship between
the phenomena observed and the observers themselves. A taxonomy
ultimately reflects as much upon the architects of that particula
conceptual order - including their own underlying motivations,
pedagogies and sociocultural context
- as
upon the material being analysed and categorized***. Whilst
early modern taxonomy, such as the Linnean system, underscored the
belief in an ultimate, objective reality (which adheres to a fixed
hierarchy) and the authority of the single
author/taxonomist/scientist in mapping this, the momentum informing
the Taxonomy
of Ghosts from Popular Forms seemed
to
emphasise
an indeterminate, intersubjective reality as observed, recorded and
pooled between a group of individuals. In adopting methods and forms
of mainstream science to conduct an enquiry into a phenomena which is
both highly subjective and more often experienced through a second
order of representation (television, film, literature and word of
mouth) the Taxonomy
of Ghosts from Popular Forms
also acknowledged that phenomena are inherently influenced (or
generated) by the local cultures in which they are first experienced
and then ordered. This would be a taxonomy not of fixed things
but visual, and culturally mediated, encounters
with the liminal.
"...How
will this taxonomy manifest? And what will it illuminate about the
various demographics of belief and superstition?... what is the ghost
in a taxonomical schema if not a disturber of order? Hovering in the
liminal space between being and nothingness..."
The
ghost in the machine of scientific taxonomy has the potential to
contaminate certainties, to erode definitional categories and to
destabilize dogma. Whilst materialist science asserts that all
reality is material and can (or eventually will be) explained by
science, the ghost traveses both material and immaterial realms: it
does not exist wholly (provably) in the physical world but neither
does it seem to be purely an 'illusion of consciousness' as ghostly
encounters - in which objects are moved or broken, messages
communicated or atmospheres affected - may suggest. This does not
mean to imply that ghosts are real
phenomena
but
rather that the ghostly manifestation has something to ask about the
nature of reality as we understand or percieve it****.
Perhaps
tellingly the material of which the Taxonomy
of Ghosts from Popular Forms is
based, derives from a period of advances in science as well as
increased renunciation of established religion. Whilst the
progression of science tends to dissalow spiritualism in favour of
rationalism, aetheism may also be seen as dislodging religious
experience, ritual and magical belief in a culture. Perhaps, then,
revivals of interest in the occult and the supernatural may be a
culture's way of channelling certain spiritual impulses or provide
access to forms of magical 'otherness' amidst the spiritual vacuum
created by materialism?
There
is also something aberrant or slightly seditious about alchemy and
the occult... In modern times it generally exists as an alternative
to
the mainstream and whilst a high percentage of Americans believe in
ghosts1.,
public expressions of such beliefs tend to be infrequent because of
the hostility (or sheer incredulity) such confidences can incurr. The
paranormal is generally regarded as simply too 'unscientific',
illogical or superstitious. Immersed as I was then in the alchemist's
coven I began to feel like this was the ideal subject matter for an
organisation which is itself slightly outside the 'normative' public
realm and in which alternative ways of being and thinking are
encouraged. Whilst Mildred's Lane provided a platform for
institutional and ideological critique (an autonomous zone, removed
from the everyday), the specific emphasis of The
Alchemists Shack II on
ghosts and ghostly encounters simultaneously honed and extended this
critique by focusing upon a phenomena which is highly personal and
intersubjective but which also carries implications for larger
cultural and social situations, ideologies and beliefs.
"Social
Saturday... I stagger away from fireside stories and songs... wonder
abounds... Luke's [Mildred's
Lane Fellow] exuberant
celebration of beer as "aqua vie! primordial liquid! Ether!"
makes me think of a certain parallelism between alchemical
Aether/Ether and elixir, ethanol. Aether the first matter for
alchemists, alchohol the first matter for artists. Alcohol is the the
social elixir... [it] momentarily opens up that ethereal space for
conversation and the exchange of thoughts... I am drunk on the ether
(the matter of the universe)... I am also... possibly... somewhat
drunk on ethanol (the matter of the fallible human)..."
On
the evening that I arrived at Mildred's Lane Alison Pennyworth was
giving a talk introducing her travelling show and research project
the BeautifulPossibilities Tour exhibited in
concurrence with The Alchemist's Shack II and
Pebworth's three week residency at The Complexity; the shop-fronted
gallery and project space in nearby Narrowsburg. Hanging on the walls
of the space were ten exquisite, hand painted banners whose curling
scrolls, looping fonts and allegorical style were reminiscent of the
posters of 19th
Century travelling circuses and Wild West Shows. The characters and
scenes in these banners gleaned from the various tropes of American
Identity; from Ketchican Totem Poles to Mickey Mouse and from
Pocahantas to John McCain, their appropriation and amalgamation
offered a simultaneously celebratory and critical reconsideration of
American history and identity.
On
a dark wood, glass-fronted counter at the back of the shop were a a
number of large vials and vitrines containing an array of colourful,
viscous liquids. From behind this pseudo-alchemical display Pebworth
explained that each of these were her “Elixirs”; amalgamations of
plants and herbs gathered throughout the travelling show and blended
in her own home-distilled alcohol. Pebworth read from the elegantly
hand-written labels of the five elixirs she had concocted whilst on
residency at The Complexity, each elixir corresponding to the
specific place or topography from where the ingredients were
gathered; 'Garden Elixir'; 'Town and Country Elixir'; 'Woods Elixir';
'Field Elixir'; and 'The Kitchen Herbs Elixir'. “This is
my communal vessel” Pebworth
said, gently lifting a large, bulbous vitrine for us to see “...so”
she continued as she began to
pour some of each individual elixir into the vessel “we
are just going to find out what the whole experience of Mildred's
Lane tastes like...”. The
Mildred's Lane elixir tasted sweet and dark like a pine forest. As
the communal vessel is passed around the room Pebworth talks about
the travelling medicine shows of the late 19th
and early 20th
centuries which used to pedal “Americanitis Elixirs”: Medicinal
elixirs intended to salve the symptoms of “Americanitis” a vague
term for the negative affects associated with post-industrial,
fast-paced contemporary life. In this little ritual there is a potent
distillation of both old and new world forms and ideas. We are
reminded of Native American medicine rituals where healing is a
holistic, shared and communal activity addressing larger situations
than simply an individual's ailments but also of the contemporary
counterparts to “Americanitis Elixirs” i.e. the Big Pharma
medicines marketed via television and social media to prescribe and
medicate contemporary social illnesses such as anxiety, depression
and fatigue. Once everyone present had drunk from the communal
vessel, it's remaining contents would be poured into Pebworth's
ever-evolving communal elixir, a blend which is gradually added to
and accumulated through her travels across America. A vile of this
would then also be buried at one corner of The Alchemist's
Shack as a votive offering (with
an owl, a bat and a bag of moths buried at the three other corners).
“On
the bus back to New York from Pennsylvania I am dizzy from five days
oscillating
between graft, talks, social events, presentations and rituals... I
can't quite put words to it yet but feel an overwhelming excitement
at the possibilities and wonder the project and this group of
artist-alchemists have opened up. Even in this small microcosm of
experience I am bowled over by the reevaluation of values, of the
possibilities of living and working collabratively in a collective
reimagining art and everyday life..."
The
residing impression gleaned from my time at Mildred's Lane and the
Alchemists Shack II project
was of the critical and creative possibilities inherent in the space
between things. Whilst
so many art institutions tend to present what is (finished
works, resolved ideas, fixed principles) in contrast what I found
valuable (and complex) about Mildred's Lane was this perpetual state
of becoming: of ideas
and identity constantly evolving according to the conversations and
momentum of the group. The alternative modes of thinking, being and
educating provide a malleable, nebulous yet vital form of
institutional critique, not by offering papers on the subject but an
organic, living, heterodox alternative. These principles seemed to
sing with the subject and intentions of The Alchemists
Shack II in which the group of
fellows/artists/alchemists/scientists came together to collectively
transfigure the base matter of the everyday through curious and
critical enquiry. By realigning or eroding categorical boundaries
and brackets – between 'scientist' and 'artist', 'objective' and
'subjective', 'public' and 'private', 'real' and 'ineffable' - The
Alchemists Shack II created a
potent space both for exploring cultural tropes and beliefs whilst
also offering a collectively authored re enchantment of life and art.
Iris
Priest
Newcastle
upon Tyne, 2013
*(which
I resorted to drawing whilst trying to impose some sense of shape to
the nebulous entity)
**Essentially
an engaged, experimental and creative approach to day-to-day domestic
duties including, but not limited to, cleaning, the curation and
organisation of household items, the re-sculpting of the recycling
facilities, cooking and communal meals, etc.
***For
instance, in the early biological taxonomy practiced by Carl Linneaus
the 'natural world' is ordered into 'ranks', assuming a hierache of
nature in which humans are at the top. The
form and application of this system resonates with the larger
religious structures and philosophical developments
of the period e.g. the Neoplatonic concept of the 'great chain of
being' (in which man is located at the top of the chain and closest
to God having been made in his image) and the development of the
scientific revolution in which materialist, empirical science was
usurping natural philosophy. Furthermore, Linnaesus's system of
binomial nomenclature - i.e. The convention of naming living things
with two latin names; the first denoting genus, the second the
suspecies within the genus, replacing previous folk traditions of
nomenclature – reflects the scientific momentum of the epoch; that
of man's conquest over nature, of civilization and logos over
superstition and mythos.
****Here
I must include a disclaimer – though I do not ascribe to
explanations of the ghost (i.e. As spirits of the dead or lingering
energies etc) I have had my own ghostly encounters which appeared as
'real' as any other encounter. But this does not mean that I
necessarily believe
in
ghosts but rather that I believe in the experience
of ghosts as much as I believe in the experience of anything.
1.48%
according to a CBS poll conducted in 2009
http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-500160_162-994766.html
[accessed 10/02/13]
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