Extispicia

The story of Mankind is a tale of interconnections. In neither visual art nor science is there such a thing as evolution of thought. It is a mistake for example to think that science is the evolutive consequence of ritual or myth. Extispicia was a ritual used to predict the future in ancient cultures and practiced as a science, especially in Mesopotamia, to collate many different disciplines, for example medicine, astronomy, and astrology. Extispicia is the inspection of the entrails (especially the liver) of a sacrificial animal. Extispicia helps us understand the way we try to assimilate our environment using metaphorical systems common in different domains of thought.
In order to express this, we present three works in Autumn 2007 in Gothenburg:

1.The liver works as an interface for time and space in the ritual. The point of the sacrifice is the cross point of the future and the past, the presence and the absence. The installation Extispicia (2007 mixed media) encourages the viewer to find the interconnections in our perceptive world through associative ideas depending on the viewers position around the artwork.
2.Time and space are concepts treated in the second installation. The visitor is between a video projection and twelve high power fans. The wind acts as time passing through the viewer who at the same time sees images going by.
3.In order to use those metaphorical systems we establish codes in our cultures. Some of these codes are clear and easy to identify, others have been hard-wired for thousands of years in our conceptual systems. The third work Tzompantli develops some of these codes. An arrangement of bones. A repetition of patterns based on the sacrificial worlds of ancient cultures.