LUNATIC

The concept of time seems to structure not only our everyday lives but also our whole existence. Our mutual understanding of time arranges the rhythm of sleeping, working, socializing, eating, thinking. The lack of capacity or unwillingness to be part of this agreement can derail one from the socially acknowledged way of living, the unwritten rules of society.

In ancient Egypt the conception of time was based on lunar calendars, on the shifts of the moon’s phases. The presence of the moon was something apparent in the everyday. In her work Lunatic, the artist Åsa Ersmark suggests that we reconsider our relation to the moon, at the same time a familiar yet a distant companion. Ersmark’s work developed from her own relationship with the moon, when she started photographing and documenting the lunar cycle from her balcony in Stockholm. The outcome is a collection depicting all of the moon phases, followed by research on different myths and beliefs connected to the moon cycle.

Ersmark suggests a return to a natural way of experiencing time, while at the same time experimenting with something completely unnatural. In her video work, the moon attacks the viewer through visual overload. We become part of the uncanny and even psychotic experience of existing simultaneously within several points in time as the different phases of the moon flicker in front of our eyes.

Lunatic features music by artists Simon Mullan and Theodore Trottner. The haunting pulsation of the beats builds the sensation of being out of control, a sensation amplified by the hectic rhythm of the images. The overall visual and auditory restlessness draws attention to the physical body of the viewer, taking thoughts into nightlife and night-time. Time in itself appears not as a linear structure, but rather as a myth, or a structure consisting of several parallel planes.

Elina Suoyrjö