Lea Porsager: [WEAK] FORCE, Museet for Samtidskunst
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Lea Porsager
[WEAK] ForceSeptember 24 – December 22, 2019
Museum of Contemporary Art, Roskilde, DKLea Porsager’s solo show [WEAK] FORCE plays unfettered, promiscuous games with the realms of the spiritual and quantum physics. Opening on 24 September at the Museum of Contemporary Art, the exhibition approaches quantum physics by way of tantric practices and Kundalini technology. Porsager’s idiosyncratic method is the pervasive factor underpinning all the art on display, loading it with energies, perversions, mantras and speculations.
CERN AND THE GHOST PARTICLE
In 2018, Lea Porsager spent time at CERN, the world’s largest particle physics research facility. Her encounter with this unique place now gives rise to the exhibition [WEAK] FORCE, inspired by the neutrino. Also known as ‘the ghost particle’, the neutrino is the mysterious elementary particle whose existence was first postulated by the theoretical physicist Wolfgang Pauli back in 1930. The mass of the neutrino is 100,000 times smaller than that of the electron, and our bodies are constantly being penetrated by these tiny particles.
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
[WEAK] FORCE brings together a number of artworks inspired by the neutrino: HORNY VACCUM, CØSMIC STRIKE, DIRTY GHOST OF E and FAINT FANTASY. The works consist of 3D animations accompanied by sound, as well as by a range of sculptural and textual elements.
CØSMIC STRIKE and HORNY VACCUM are both equipped with so-called neutrino horns. At CERN, neutrino horns are used to focus neutrino flows, thereby forming a beam that enables the scientists to study these volatile particles. In the exhibition, the horns become vessels for Porsager’s speculations.
In the 3D animations, the camera mimics an invisible neutrino particle floating through virtual horns. The films are viewed through anaglyph 3D glasses fitted with an additional third eye. The 3D animation HORNY VACUUM is accompanied by the pulsating sound of a gong as well as by three telescopic neutrino horns, two red inflated ‘öko-tech tube walls’, and a ‘baculum’ (a walrus penis bone) transformed into a ‘kangling’ (a spiritual bone horn).
The 3D animation CØSMIC STRIKE takes its point of departure in a ‘tired tantric experiment’ which Lea Porsager conducted during her stay at CERN. The work incorporates a mantra, a neutrino horn and a daybed. DIRTY GHOST OF E is a sculptural ghost element, while FAINT FANTASY is text accompanying the exhibition.
For more, see the exhibition catalogue. Here, museum director Birgitte Kirkhoff Eriksen and particle physicist D. Jason Koskinen unpack many of the issues addressed in the exhibition.
Museum of Contemporary Art, Roskilde
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Installation views
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