Introduction
Are you coming or going, around? is the title of a new exhibition by Angela Bulloch. In recent years, Bulloch has been mainly experimenting with the possibilities of her so-called Pixel Boxes, but this exhibition marks the beginning of a new series of works, that is related to the artist’s characteristic method of observing systems that order and define our lives. Whereas previously focusing on synaesthetic transformation of auditive and visual digital information, the object of Bulloch’s genuine scepticism has now turned to astronomy. She engages with the economy and semantics of interplanetary and interstellar relations, their gravitation fields and the kinds of visual representations of the earth, our solar system, and the universe that astronomy has experienced on the way from the age of enlightenment towards globalized pop culture.
The title of the installation is a play with words on the idea of orbiting or ‘running around in circles’—in this case understood in opposition to the linear-teleological concept of progress. In a binary system of alternatives there is no answer as to whether an orbiting object is coming or going, which reflects the impossible attempt to comprehend the order of the universe at one glance, as well as the dependency upon which perspective one is bound to or chooses. Are you coming or going, around? applies the principle of the Copernican turn from a geocentric to a heliocentric world picture to the world of objects and their relations within the system of visual art.
The installation offers terrestrial and extra terrestrial perspectives on the moon, the earth and other parts of the solar system in different medias. In the main space of the gallery a large hovering balloon simulates a view of the earth by means of a programmed light system and recordings of the earth being projected onto it. The ceiling of the adjoining space has been turned into the sight of a particular part of the celestial sphere viewed from a position beyond the earth. These sort of scenographies are countered by actual, however rendered, recordings of the universe: 12 prints allow us to see the earth and the sun from the approximate position of Mercury. The soundtrack consists of a radically altered Jazz Funk version of the symphonic composition Also sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss. The original material was recorded in 1973 and conducted by the Brasilian pianist, arranger and composer Eurmir Deodato.
The exhibition is closely linked to Repeat Refrain (2007): a major installation that has been developed upon invitation by curator Francesco Bonami and Enel Contemporanea in Rome. It consists of a huge simulated moon that will float over the Ara Pacis Augustae and project two different views of the same lunar eclipse every night from May 11th for two weeks only.