 This is the first finished painting of three. The other two in finishing stages and hopefully will be able to finish them after moving to a new apartment (or into a tent) and the visit of my brother.
Continuing doing cut ups in paint but the first three where much more loose and these ones come in a more concise, painted flavor. The process is to find images by accident that appeals to the main theme and incorporate them into the painting in a way that Works compositionally in one way or another. I do break rules of composition and use any means necessary to make things work, overally binding the whole painting together. This one is a reflection on the Demon Marbas from the Lesser Key of Solomon. Started getting into the western side of magick again after doing some work investigating Vodou. Felt bad about it, feeling guilty of appropriation. Even though interestingly enough a lot of western magick was appropriated by Vodou. Vevés in Vodou comes from the sigils of western magick. This being introduced as an idea from french magicians wanting to learn about Vodou and Haiti being a French colony this cross pollination was made posible. There is even some Grimoires from Europe that are still being considered important for some practicioners of Vodou. And yes of course there is the enforced integration of Catholosicm… In either case Vodou does stretch so much, much further into african roots and being a White person born in Sweden and serious practicioners of Vodou spend childhood and years and years of living and breathing Vodou I could not justify dabbling in it. So here I am back to European roots even though there always be Baron Samedi from vodou that I will still work with in my art as that is something resonating with me… and for some reason I do not feel guilty about going into that. In either case Marbas is mainly a Demon that is famous for causing harm or to heal and mainly known through the Grimoire The Lesser Key Of Solomon. If you enjoy this one for sure the other two will be appreciated as well.  This art work is an invocation to Legba, the Loa of the crossroads between this world and the other realms of existence. It is said that there is no communication possible without him so in almost all except in some rituals of the more dark and sinister kind he is invoked in the beginning and in the end of the ritual to open and close the gates. So felt that the image, music and video are in my mind a reflection of this and a way to ask him for help to open the crossroads. (If there is attention paid to the music there is the words help me being pronounced). The image is not only an image it actually is the music. The sound was created first recorded into a program that transforms the sound into an image that can be manipulated in diverse ways and so affecting the sound. It is a way to visually compose music. The sounds that make up the image are all voices manipulated in the program. It is possible to download the image and load it into this program and listen to it. The image is to me enough in itself as a small piece of art and even though it is composed through a computer program it has an organic feel to it that is in missing in most computer generated art, which of course comes from the fact that it is in the base human voices that have dictated the outcome. The case can be made that the video is a bigger part of the invocation than the image with its encoded sound built into its core. The video is made using another program by the same developer (Alexander Zolotov) It takes an image or GIF and transmits it through sound into a receiving device that can be a computer or a mobile device where the image gets reconstructed. This means that you can manipulate the image through movement or by connecting the transmitter through for example guitar pedals. It is in the end a signal sent through the “ether” that would in theory be more susceptible to be interceded by disembodied entities, especially if the images are so construed as being a direct call or in use as a magickal tool. So being an invocation of Legba the images used are different versions of Legba’s vevè. A small aside is that the developer has suggested its use as a way to do EVP experiments. So if there is a need to scare your-self maybe darken the room, sit close to the video and look for shapes and images that seem to show intelligence behind it! Final comments;
The programs are for free and it is interesting to download at least Virtual ANS to be able to listen to the original unmixed version of the music. Personally it is hard to say which version is better. The one that is in the video is more diffuse and maybe slightly scarier but maybe the more direct sound is preferable for some? Just download the image by right clicking and load it into Virtual ANS press play and do a remix! This is one of many ideas that are going to be explored and do really want to do more of this magickal music experiments and next time using only sounds from Vodou rituals but as in this work get an image that works pictorially as a balanced piece of art by itself. This video is uploaded for now by my good friend Frank Malm on his Youtube channel as he writes about music making apps for mobile devices (hence the title of the video highligthing the apps and not the art) and there will be more people seeing it through his channel. In some weeks will probably start my own. To download Virtual ANS- http://warmplace.ru/soft/ans/ (The work can be shared but not used in other work or for financial gain.) |
