10 Days and Nights - 10 suspended perspex lenses with back-projected video
The Mediums Glasses I & II - Photographs printed onto old pairs of glasses using traditional darkroom techniques
I was inspired to produce a series of works based on nineteenth century occult and pseudo-scientific documentary photography. During the nineteenth century it was believed that camera technology could capture the spirit world and photographs appearing to show ghosts and a range of occult phenomena were often used as "evidence" for a world that lay beyond what we could see.
Laura Marker
Laura Marker - artist
Past technology - future vision: Occult illusion and optical truth in the imaginary technology of Hexen 2039.
Absract
Suzanne Treister's Hexen 2039 series is a highly complex, and at first sight, almost impenetrable work, in which Treister claims to undertake an investigation of the historical links between the military/scientific and the occult. By amassing and manipulating historical sources from a wide time-frame, Treister can be seen as opening up the dialogue which surrounds contemporary technological innovation. Concepts such as State surveillance and mind alteration can be seen as central to Hexen, but equally Treister's decision referencing of occult devices ties to historical notions surrounding technological innovations, specifically within the field of optical devices. The way in which Treister intertwines her research appears to provoke a questioning of ideas relating to truth and illusion - whether we can actually believe our observations. This in turn begins to raise the question as to whether this work is real about military-occult relationships, or whether a secondary motivation lies behind Hexen 2039.
