Suspension of Disbelief

15 minute performance: earth and papier mâché sculptural pieces; copper emoticons; neon blackboard; Second Life video projection; amplified heartbeat: 

REBIRTH … FIRST LIFE … SECOND LIFE … SPEL CHEK… 

This symposium reflects on how the current popularity of spiritual themes connects to recent developments within society. Is this revival a new sort of activism in a battle against callousness, loneliness and meaninglessness? Or is this movement a fashionable form of identity politics? Is it related to an increase, in Western Europe, of maladies like ‘burn-out’?  Is the popularity of diet-gurus or brewing Ayuhuasca also a new form of religion? And is there a link to the so-called Post-Truth society? 

Concerning the Spiritual in Art symposium text 

SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF: international symposium event: Concerning the Spiritual in Art. Paradiso in collaboration with the Stedelijk Museum and the Goethe-Institute, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, April 22, 2018. 

Photography by: V. Ushkanova, P. Kers, H. Noorda