Stones carried the earliest possible components of life. They carry the elements, minerals, water, sugar, that make life possible in any corner of the cosmos. That’s a literal notion, not a vague one. Before earth, these elements were drawn to stone, and carried within it.
For the last 3.8 billion years, as life evolved here, stones have carried sacred weight and connected our ancestors to the wonders of space.
In Ancestors, Silvia Battista has landed somewhere between this science and magic to tell a story of us. It is intentionally grounding.
As I sat in the centre of the room, alone, what became important was how light (largely absent) was either swallowed or reflected by a composition of stone; how that interacted ever so gently with illustration and human made objects; where faint slivers of natural light failed to illuminate the space, and electric glows made it possible to navigate.
Deep techno thudding through the space is centring. Composed by Manoli Moriaty, the sound work is overwhelming, but becomes essential to the experience. It also draws an important contrast to the rest of the exhibition. This, like the electricity that both intentionally and incidentally runs through the space, is light, sound and energy. These are separate from our stone ancestors. These pieces of the exhibition connect, and enable the construction of a life force, which could otherwise be disconnected from everything. That would exist, but in isolation.
This distinction between forms of energy, separate from that of life, makes it possible to relate to the stone – to relate to the elemental connection.
That, for me, is where the power of this piece sits. Not in all of its parts, but in that room. That grounding room.
And I call Ancestors a piece, not a composition of them, because they are one story, told three ways: The Lab; The Temple; The Abyss.
The Temple is where I found my connection to Ancestors, but by telling the story through document, experience, and storytelling respectively, Silvia’s persistent idea of transmission is accessible in whatever you need it to be.
In The Lab, a constellation is drawn across the UK, defined by landing sites of documented meteorites. Those meteorites, illustrated and annotated are a document. In some cases, they are described by dates and location, in others by the experience of those who saw them land. The fact that they are still landing, reiterates the connection to elements and energies outside of our atmosphere.
The constellation that these have created by landing exactly where they did, in all of space and time, on the rotation of the earth, and its journey around our sun, were then connected, manually, in chronological order. This pattern created a web, with accidental depth. This was fed into AI to build a new meteorite, defined and constructed by natural patterns, but rendered, in Silvia’s words, out of known space and time.
This AI engine was asked to sit within that prompt. I do not know how much it knew of the reasons for it, but if AI trains itself on our behaviour, I’d like to think this exhibition helped towards any future gentility it might have – with a new and unlikely memory of reflecting on objects outside of its physical space.
Ancestors is the first of four parts of Transmissions, each curated by one part of Material Matters collective. Between now and 22nd November, the exhibition will change, entirely – four times. In each, they focus on links between animate and inanimate life.
—
ACT I, ANCESTORS ends 11th October. Transmissions continues at Bridewell Studios & Gallery until 22nd November.
ACT II, Pneuma, John Elcock, 16 Oct – 25 Oct
ACT III, INTERMISSION, Angelo Madonna, 30 Oct – 08 Nov
ACT IV, VESSEL, Patric Rogers, 13 Nov – 22 Nov
Words, Patrick Kirk-Smith
