[WEAK] FORCE
Lea 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.
Screening of HORNY VACUUM at Bloom 2019. (Photo: Malthe Folke Iversen)
[WEAK] FORCE brings together a number of artworks inspired by the neutrino: HORNY VACUUM, 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.
HORNY VACUUM was shown on Bloom Festival earlier this year. Read more here. (Photo: Dennis Morton)
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
Neutrino horn. (Source: CERN)
CØSMIC STRIKE and HORNY VACUUM 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.
3D-still from HORNY VACUUM, Lea Porsager (2019)
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).
3D-still from CØSMIC STRIKE, Lea Porsager (2018)
EXPLORATION AND IMMERSIVENESS FOR FAMILIES
In extension to Porsager's universe with neutrinos and spirituality kids and other imaginative individuals can create mandalas, explore the museum with a Geiger counter and try the neutrino's journey through their horns for yourself.
Furthermore, the classic children's tv-character Bamse can be seen on an old tv screen - if he doesn't disappear through the wall.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS –
The exhibition is supported by the Obel Family Foundation, the Danish Arts Foundation, the Beckett Foundation and the Knud Højgaard Foundation.
Roskilde Festival and BLOOM are exhibition partners.
The album release is supported by the Augustinus Foundation.
CØSMIC STRIKE was created as part of the af Collide International Award, Arts event at CERN and FACT and was co-produced by ScANNER. It was supported by the Danish Arts Foundation.
HORNY VACUUM has been donated to the museum’s collection by the New Carlsberg Foundation. It was first presented at the BLOOM festival 2019.
Lea Porsager, foto: Sara Calbiati
ABOUT LEA PORSAGER
Lea Porsager (b. 1981) describes her artistic method as speculative imaginings within the fields of so-called weird science, alternative life forms and the esoteric.
Her works occupy a space where quantum theory, feminism and far-out spiritual insights intersect.
Lea Porsager graduated from the Städelschule (art academy) in Frankfurt and from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 2010. In September 2015, Porsager took up a position as PhD fellow at the Malmö Art Academy and Lund University.
In her PhD project CUT-SPLICE THOUGHT-FORMS, Porsager explores the effect of quantum mechanics on spiritual visions. Lea Porsager has exhibited at DOCUMENTA 13 and will present a solo show at the Moderna Museum in Stockholm in 2020.
On [WEAK] FORCE, Lea Porsager notes:
‘In these works, I have let myself be inspired by the properties of the neutrino, specifically the queer qualities of this ghost particle. Its oscillation (its periodic variations and changing properties), its ability to change flavour, its left-handedness, its ability to penetrate all – even massive heavenly bodies, vacuums and creatures full of blood.
I was also attracted by the neutrino’s immunity to electromagnetic fields – you could say that it operates according to different parameters, responding only to the socalled ‘weak’ force. Physicists speak of these particles as ideal messengers from remote parts of the universe because they can travel through cosmic distances without deviating from their path, penetrating and passing through all matter unimpeded. In the works, these left-handed particles are explored by way of lefthanded tantra / left-path tantra. This tantric mode of thought has to do with the vulgar, the promiscuous, and the so-called ‘female aspect’ – the void and the vacuum. “hOrny smackdOwn all the way” (quote: HORNY VACUUM).
And then there’s Wolfgang Pauli, who has become a recurring figure in the exhibition, and there are hidden (or weak) nods to Lee Lozano og STURTEVANT. Pauli channels the forbidden interweaving of hardcore science and alchemical/ spiritual thinking. He clandestinely corresponded with the famous psychoanalyst and interpreter of dreams C.G. Jung, sending him accounts of more than 1,300 of his own dreams. Their correspondence contributed to Jung’s conceptualisation of the phenomenon of “synchronicity”, describing the meaningful correlation between incidents that have no logical causal relationship.’
