Inveterate experimenter, artist and extrapolator Thomas Ashcraft installs a vast and complex system of ponds, gardens, electrical labs, and public thinking chambers for a summer engagement in the new 6,000 square-foot
Muñoz Waxman Gallery.
Ashcraft will also exhibit the Codices : Heliotown, which are comprised of a series of reports and ongoing investigations into a multitude of subjects including sculptural extrapolations into the possibility of microbial life in outer space; studies into comets and fireballs; futuristic money analogs and parallel currency prototypes; a method of hyperextending the nervous system for enhancing artistic sensitivity; the aesthetics of micro-monumentalism, and lots more.
Of special interest: On the nights of June 23 and 24, the public is cordially invited to events wherein Ashcraft will take the opportunity to introduce a new artistic and cultural form that he calls “electroreception.” Using modified radio telescopes as energy receivers Ashcraft will attempt to harness direct electromagnetism from the planet Jupiter and use it as a new artistic medium to power sculpture in real time. (Stay tuned for further information as to specific details of these events.)
This installation and all events are “central nervous system friendly.”
Thomas Ashcraft first showed at the CCA in 1989 with an installation and investigation of the concept of Radiopanspermia, which means “seed: everywhere ( in the cosmos): propelled by interstellar radiation.” Now nearly two decades later, Ashcraft presents his updated research in the field of astrobiology. In 2005 he was a recipient of the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award in the Arts. He lives and works as a radio astronomer twenty miles southeast of Santa Fe. For his recent observations check out his website at www.heliotown.com. |