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\u201cI travelled by boat eleven hours into the Amazon,\u201d said Rezaire, \u201cto bring this story of the birth of the moon from Indigenous cosmology.\u201d Resplendent in a silver-blue robe reminiscent of the High Priestess of the Major Arcana card in the tarot deck, she could have been Sun Ra\u2019s selenic counterpart: a queer-femme lunar goddess poised at the intersection of new media and sonic Afrofuturism. The moon was waxing on the edge of full. Rezaire beckoned us to form a circle as she wove tales of the moon gathered from ancient astronomy, Kemetic yoga, and the ancestral spiritual traditions from the dense jungles of French Guiana, where she currently lives and works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rezaire recounted the Teko ancestral origin story of the moon: Under cover of three consecutive nights, a young girl was assaulted in her bed. On the third night, she lay in wait in her hammock, armed with genipa<\/em>, a natural black ink used in the village of Camopi for tattooing. When the perpetrator returned, she threw the ink in his face. The next morning, his identity was revealed\u200a\u2014\u200aher own brother. Thrust from the community into the farthest reaches of the sky, he was transformed into the moon. Penitent, he vowed to keep watch over all the Earth\u2019s virgins, whom he repossesses with each full moon, synchronizing their menstruation with his cosmic rhythms. So the myth goes. \u201cA bit creepy,\u201d Rezaire said, throwing a glance at Guggenberger.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Tabita Rezaire<\/strong>
SYGYZY o Full Moon Special o, <\/em>performance view, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, 2019.
Photo : courtesy of Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
What does science have to say? Guggenberger invited us to view the moon through her Meade LX90-EMC high-resolution telescope. As we took turns observing the ink-pitted craters, she described sunken lakes of solidified basaltic lava, ancient crustal highlands, and a cosmic collision that blasted material debris into orbit some four billion years ago. Her tales hardly resembled the disenchantment with nature promised by Enlightenment rationality. The transdisciplinary dialogue between the unlikely collaborators inched forward like this, searching for points of alignment among the languages of scientific realism, ancestral myth, and speculative fiction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Syzygy<\/em> is an astronomical term for a phenomenon in which astral bodies fall into alignment. Carl Jung borrowed the concept to describe the balancing of opposites. Rezaire redeployed it analogically during the autumn equinox\u200a\u2014\u200awhen day and night approach equilibrium\u200a\u2014\u200ato reimagine the convergence of Western empiricism and ancestral knowledge. A curious move, given that the anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing had just passed, the moment of the USA\u2019s imperial conquest of space that made it impossible to have myths about the moon. With SYGYZY o Full Moon Special o<\/em> Rezaire was trying to reawaken all the things the moon had been before \u201cwe\u201d\u200a\u2014\u200ainheritors of Western science\u200a\u2014\u200aknew that it was just a satellite of accreted debris. Mixing science and magic, her collective rituals aim to loosen the old alliance of technoscience and patriarchy, which continues to shape global configurations of power. Her gesture of counter-conquest proceeds in the name of all people who tell stories about the moon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Whereas Sun Ra\u2019s sonic time travel uncovered the pre-modern possibilities of Egyptian sun worship, Rezaire calls on the pantheon of lunar deities and the cult of moon lovers to nurture feminist, queer, and Afrofuturist counter-imaginaries.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
Rezaire has continued her practice of full-moon gatherings through the pandemic in digital transmissions from her new venture, AMAKABA, a healing centre grounded in ancestral practices that houses the Moon Center for astral observation.^{4<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 4 <\/a> - AMAKABA is supported by the Serpentine Galleries\u2019s ongoing project Back to Earth<\/em>; see the Serpentine Galleries website.<\/span> The Center\u2019s online offerings include a collection of stories from \u201cguardians of moon wisdom\u201d from disparate locations: a healer in Dakar, a tarot reader in Los Angeles, an herbalist in Kinshasa, an astrophysicist in Cayenne. A series of meditations is dedicated to the lunar phases. Filmed through Rezaire\u2019s telescope under the skies of French Guiana, the meditations call us to \u201clive in moon time,\u201d bringing our \u201cbody-mind-spirits\u201d into alignment with the cyclical rhythms of its gravitational pull. \u201cUnder the guidance of the moon, we synch our creative energy with the motion of infinity.\u201d^{5<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 5 <\/a> - The Meditations can be accessed via the Moon Center\u2019s online platform.<\/span> Decentring universalizing narratives, Rezaire is trying, through her lunar stories and screen-interfaced meditations, to spur a cosmic awakening on the eve of a new geopolitical age of space exploration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a spiritual descendant of the Witches of Thessaly, Rezaire\u2019s lunar imaginaries resonate with a counter-lineage of collective experiments: Susan Hiller\u2019s para-conceptual Dream Mapping <\/em>(1974); Malena Szlam\u2019s lyrical 16mm film Lunar Almanac<\/em> (2013); Black Quantum Futurism\u2019s Black Space Agency<\/em> (2018), a series of workshop-performances that unearths the legacies of the space race in North Philadelphia; and Bogot\u00e1-based Mapa Teatro\u2019s La Luna en el Amazonas<\/em> (The Moon in the Amazon<\/em>) (2021), a theatrical performance that interrogates an ongoing legacy of colonization in Latin America: the destructive appropriation of the rainforest by Canadian multinationals as the killing of land defenders grows to epidemic levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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$\"Susan-Hiller_NightofAugust23-24-1974\"$
Susan Hiller<\/strong>
Dream Mapping (composite group dream map,<\/em>
night of Aug 23-24)<\/em>, 1974.
Photo : \u00a9 Susan Hiller, courtesy of Estate of Susan Hiller<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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$\"BlackQuantumFuturism_-SpaceStation\"$
Black Quantum Futurism<\/strong>
Black Space Agency, <\/em>installation view, Icebox Project Space,
Philadelphie, 2018.
Photo : D1Lo DeMiLLe<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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$\"Malena-Szlam_Lunar_Almanac\"$
Malena Szlam<\/strong>
Lunar Almanac <\/em>(detail), <\/em>2013. <\/em>
Photo : courtesy of the artist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
But is Rezaire\u2019s cyber-sorcery an adequate response to the ongoing expansion of networked communications technologies that is driving the development of new frontiers of asteroid mineral extraction, as well as new legal structures and arms control in shallow low-Earth orbit? As NASA\u2019s James Webb Space Telescope unfurls its gigantic parasol of silvery Kapton foil, promising to penetrate our cosmic past, Rezaire\u2019s millenarian Naturphilosophie<\/em> (nature-philosophy) recycles a mishmash of New Age signifiers\u200a\u2014\u200aworld metaphysical traditions and alternative medicine, Kemetic yoga, altered states of consciousness, pan-syncretic Goddess worship, spiritual meditation, and organicist visions. Her multimedia installations and performative offerings renew the cosmovision of 1970s New Age spirituality that has been criticized from Indigenous, neo-pagan perspectives, as a form of cultural appropriation, and by critical theorists in the Marxist tradition, as a neoliberal political theology\u200a\u2014\u200aa discourse of therapeutic consolation over the effects of global capitalism that continues to expropriate land and labour.^{6<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 6 <\/a> - See Goran Kauzlari\u0107\u2019s critique of the intersection of neoliberal and new age narratives in his \u201cNew Age: A Modus of Hegemony,\u201d in Thinking Beyond Capitalism<\/em>, conference proceedings, eds. Aleksandar Matkovi\u0107, Mark Losoncz, and Igor Krtolica (Belgrade: Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, 2016), 175\u200a\u2212<\/em>\u200a98.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rezaire\u2019s wager\u200a\u2014\u200aa high-stakes bid, to be sure\u200a\u2014\u200ais that these clich\u00e9s can be redirected toward a project of intergenerational healing. Her lunar re-imaginings are part of a new age of intersectional feminism and queer neo-pagan activism that aims to heal the ongoing traumas of colonialism that haunt bodies, along with the internet\u2019s technological infrastructures. As opposed to the therapeutic individualism of 1970s New Age discourses, Rezaire\u2019s science-integrative performances re-envision network sciences\u200a\u2014\u200aorganic, electronic, and spiritual\u200a\u2014\u200aas collective healing technologies. Echoing Audre Lorde\u2019s claim that self-care is not self-indulgence but self-preservation\u200a\u2014\u200a\u201can act of political warfare\u201d\u200a\u2014\u200aRezaire\u2019s intervention in the art-science divide implements healing practices as a collective survival strategy.^{7<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 7 <\/a> - Audre Lorde, A Burst of Light: and Other Essays<\/em> (Mineola, NY: Ixia Press [1988], 2017), 228.<\/span> <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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$\"Tabita-Rezaire_UltraWet-VillaMerkel\"$ <\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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$\"Tabita-Rezaire_UltraWet-VillaMerkel\"$ <\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Ultra Wet\u2212Recapitulation<\/em>, installtion views, Villa Merkel, Esslingen am Neckar, 2019.
Photos : courtesy of the artist & Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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$\"Tabita-Rezaire_UltraWet-VillaMerkel\"$ <\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
She takes seriously Donna Haraway\u2019s assertion that \u201ctaking responsibility for the social relations of science and technology means refusing an anti-science metaphysics, a demonology of technology, and so means embracing the skillful task of reconstructing the boundaries of daily life, in partial connection with others\u201d\u200a\u2014\u200aincluding nonhuman others.^{8<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 8 <\/a> - Donna Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature<\/em> (New York: Routledge, 1991), 181.<\/span> At a moment of intensification of climate change, global surveillance, and the new colonial frontier of a private space race led by Silicon Valley billionaires, Rezaire\u200a\u2014\u200awho completed a degree in economics before turning to art\u200a\u2014\u200ainvests in a new mythology that treats science as a spiritual technology and a means of collective empowerment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reactivating the memory of revolts kindled at night, in fugitive meetings on moonlit hilltops, Tabita Rezaire\u2019s sky-gazing performance SYGYZY o Full Moon Special o<\/em> closed with a final meditation. Rezaire instructed us to lie down on the rooftop. As we lay with our backs to the Kunsthalle Wien and our eyes skyward, she struck a gong, washing us with undulating sonic vibrations pulled down from the moon, to shift time and remake collectivities. After one last chance to gaze through Guggenberger\u2019s telescope, the impromptu collective of Selenians dissolved into the cool, late-summer night.<\/p>\n
Black Quantum Futurism, Gwynne Fulton, Malena Szlam, Mapa Teatro, Susan Hiller, Tabita Rezaire<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"People believed that Aglaonice of Thessaly controlled the moon. The ancient Greek astronomer and thaumaturge\u200a\u2014\u200aone of 999 women acknowledged in the pyramidal Heritage Floor of Judy Chicago\u2019s The Dinner Party<\/em> (1974\u200a\u2212\u200a79)\u200a\u2014\u200awas renowned for her knowledge of lunar cycles. Aglaonice claimed that she could make the moon disappear from the\u00a0sky, gaining herself a reputation as a sorceress. In patriarchal Greek city-states, skilled women were considered not natural philosophers but witches. Making use of this to obtain social power, Aglaonice taught the Witches of Thessaly to use their knowledge of lunar eclipses to \u201cdraw down the moon\u201d with their rituals. Her contemporaries tried to discredit her powers as mere trickery, but this missed its true magic, which was to build emancipatory collectivity.<\/br>","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":162684,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[882],"tags":[],"numeros":[2758],"disciplines":[],"statuts":[],"checklist":[],"auteurs":[935],"artistes":[2637,2189,2661,2648,2566],"thematiques":[],"type_post":[195,319],"class_list":["post-162755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-post","numeros-105-new-new-age","auteurs-gwynne-fulton-en","artistes-black-quantum-futurism-en","artistes-malena-szlam-en","artistes-mapa-teatro-en","artistes-susan-hiller-en","artistes-tabita-rezaire","type_post-principal"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162755"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":271386,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162755\/revisions\/271386"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162755"},{"taxonomy":"numeros","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/numeros?post=162755"},{"taxonomy":"disciplines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disciplines?post=162755"},{"taxonomy":"statuts","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/statuts?post=162755"},{"taxonomy":"checklist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/checklist?post=162755"},{"taxonomy":"auteurs","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/auteurs?post=162755"},{"taxonomy":"artistes","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artistes?post=162755"},{"taxonomy":"thematiques","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thematiques?post=162755"},{"taxonomy":"type_post","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type_post?post=162755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}