working on more Earth Magic photographs

Photograph of myself preparing a glass plate by Ayse Idil Idil.

Kirlian devices, auras and exploration

I've had several people contact me recently regarding my work with Kirlian devices, so I thought I would write a bit about the subject.

After reading about Kirlian devices for several years, I finally found myself determined to own such a device.  While there are devices available for sale on the Internet, I wanted something that I could play with and modify.  I searched online and dug through old books and magazines for plans and historical information, then set to work.

To be honest, my skills with reading schematics are rudimentary at best.  I found myself on the phone with my brother Doug, harassing him to help me with my projects.

In the end, I was able to come up with a couple of devices which I am able to modify to suit my needs.

Early experiments were fairly basic - the standard leaf or hand on a sheet of photographic paper.  I then quickly moved on to more ambitious projects.

This is Jane's face.

 Here are both of our faces on one image.

 

This is a Kirlian portrait of both of our hands.  I have not seen anyone else take Kirlian photographs of two people touching.  If someone else has done this, I would love to see the results.  This is a bit more tricky as the electrical energy circulates through both of our bodies in order to create the circuit needed to make this image appear.  As such, the potential for a bit of a shock presents itself.


If I haven't said it before, I consider myself lucky to have a wife willing to go through such ordeals (i.e. - electrical shock) in order to help with my art projects. 

I decided that these images were a bit hard to read visually, so I wanted to try something a bit different.  I used Fuji instant film (similar to Polaroid pack film) to take a photograph of Jane, then apply the Kirlian device to the photograph before processing the image.  The result is my Aether Field Portrait series.

Aether Field Portrait, Figure 1-1 (December 18th, 2011)

I was then curious if I would be able to create a full-body Kirlian image of myself.  Armed with a roll of RA-4 color photographic paper, a darkroom, a color processor and a makeshift Kirlian device, I set to work

 This resulted in a number of full body Kirlian scrolls, approximately 7-8 feet in length.

This is a closeup of the facial region.

For scale, here is a photograph of myself with the image.

Believe it or not, this series actually stems from many of the same themes as the Symbiosis series.  I'm merging my interest in arcane photographic techniques and attempts to utilize the photographic process to capture the invisible with my quest to understand the new circumstances in my life.  I'm utilizing Kirlian photography, aura photography, Radionics and other approaches to investigate my personal life.

For more in this vein, see the Subtle Bodies series on my website.

Thoughts on the Magical Calendar

I mentioned briefly my Magical Calendar project for 2013. While I work on it, I thought that I'd give a bit more information on this project.

As I mentioned previously, I've been highly inspired by the Calendrier Magique of 1896.  While I am inspired by the aesthetics and approach of Austin De Croze and Manuel Orazi, I will be diverging a bit in some regards.  They illustrated different facets of magical history, and in some ways I will do the same.

I will be tying together visually information culled from a variety of sources, in an attempt to create a linear  "story."  I'm stockpiling information that could well become a book, but honestly I trust my ability to create images more than my ability to write words.

2013 is the perfect year for this project, immediately following the "apocalypse" that has been the topic of much debate.  As "apocalypse" means "the lifting of the veil," I look forward to depicting a post-apocalyptic world of mystery and secret knowledge passed down through the ages.

Images will be composed of photographs that I have taken, retouched via photocollage and other mixed media approaches.  Prints will be museum quality archival inkjet reproductions, signed and numbered in very small editions.

I will be releasing information regarding each monthly image on the third Friday of each month, at which point the limited number of prints will be immediately available.  Those who have purchased prints in the series previously will have access the the purchase information one day early, in order to assist those attempting to collect the entire year's worth of images.

January's image will be entitled "Genesis," focusing on the figure Lilith.

A new project...

I've been secretly planning a new project for six months now, and Halloween seems like the best time to announce it.

For the past few years I've been fixating on the Calendrier Magique - a magical calendar by Austin de Croze and Manuel Orazi made to document the year in magic for 1896. 

This is the image for January 1896.  We have a large-scale reproduction of this hanging in our living room.  The entire calendar can be viewed online at the website of the Fantastic in Art and Fiction archives, a department of Cornell University's library.

I've been planning my own version for the year 2013.  I've been reading, taking notes, sketching, taking photographs and making tests.  I should probably not be mentioning this until the release is a bit nearer, but honestly I've been keeping it quiet for so long that I can't hold back any longer.

The images will be created via photographs, photo collage and mixed media. 

Rather than rush to release my "calendar" as a bound piece at the beginning of the year, I've decided to release a very limited number of prints of each month as it arrives.  People will be able to collect a single month, or the entire year's worth of images.

I'm still sorting out some of the logistics, and am very open to suggestions.

I'll have more to say (and show) about this project soon.  If this is of interest to you, please let me know!

Returning

I've decided to return to Blogspot.  Wordpress just didn't work out.

I've been more quiet than usual for a lot of reasons.  A list of things that I've been up to lately:

1.  Getting married.  Jane and I got married on August 12th.  The whole thing was incredible.

2.  Honeymoon in Vienna.  Also amazing.  We spent ten days eating tortes, drinking coffee, wandering through art museums and marveling at the magnificent city.  Having been obsessed with serpent symbolism lately, I told Jane that I was going to document snakes on our honeymoon.  Every time we turned the corner, we found more snakes:  statues, paintings, mosaics, etc. 

I also said that I wanted to find this Sethian altar that I'd heard rumors about.  We found it in the first wing of the first museum we visited in the city.

3.  Working on my red book, the last handmade book in my long-running alchemical book cycle.  While this video is mainly about the white book, Albedo, there is information about the in-progress red book at the end.

 4.  Venturing out into the woods to take more Earth Magic photographs before the harsh Chicago winter sets in.

5.  Along with Jane, planning, building, launching and maintaining the new website Occult Guide.  Occult Guide is a website dedicated to building a worldwide map of user-submitted locations of occult interest.  The site has been online for two months now, with some amazing locations having been added already.

6.  Research, development and tests for other future art projects.

I can't say much more right now, but I can say with confidence that 2013 is going to be an amazing year.

Chicago - Earth Magic

Tomorrow!  June 21st, one night solo exhibition.

Postcard designed by Chris Elmore of Hammer Smashed Sound.

Facebook invitation for the event.

t-shirt as relic

I saw something recently that made me think of the relevance of certain clothing items and thought that I might share something of my own.

This is the SUNN t-shirt that I wore while photographing the entire "Earth Magic" series.  I bought it at their concert in 2005 in Seattle (with Boris and Earth).  I wanted a black shirt originally, but there weren't any.  I got this instead and ended up loving it.  It's very soft.  The next night I saw Sunn again in Olympia (with Boris and Thrones).  They had black shirts then.  I didn't get one.

I wore this shirt regularly over the following years, until the print started to fade.  In 2010 I was taking my second wet plate collodion workshop, which would eventually lead toward "Earth Magic."  I'd somehow avoided ruining any clothes up until this point, but when I started using the 8x10 camera (and officially beginning the new series) I somehow got some silver nitrate on my clothes.  Silver nitrate is what makes the coated glass plate sensitive to light - consequently it stains all organic matter black.  At this point I decided to make this my official wet plate uniform.

I wore this shirt every time I took photographs for the series.  I rolled around in dirt and mixed chemicals such as ether and alcohol in this shirt.  It has a very particular smell that I don't expect will ever disappear.  It's kind of gross, really.  It's still amazingly comfortable, and maybe I feel that it's lucky in some way. 

The bottom edge of the shirt is full of small holes, as at some point I decided against bringing rags with me into the forest, opting to polish the plates with my shirt.

The back is bleached out, though I'm not sure if it's from the sun or from something else.  I'm not sure how that stain got there.

Here is a snapshot of me from last August, before a majority of the shirt abuse took place.  This was taken to demonstrate the ridiculous way that I ended up setting up my camera to get a specific photograph. 

And to be nice, the photograph in question, previously unreleased.