Tuesday, May 28, 2013

More Manifestations news!!

Anna Ruhland did a really fun interview with us:




#1: What will people experience at Manifestations?
Manifestations will provide the experience of a 19th century spiritualist séance parlor.  Visitors will be free to interact with our ethereal installation and will help to conjure the spirits of St. Paul and beyond.  Attendees will have the option to participate in several activities including: foretelling their own fates with divination cards and planchettes; viewing 3D spirit photographs; reading tales from St. Paul denizens (of days gone by); interacting with a medium; entering the Spirit Chamber to collaborate on a unique photographic take-home memento; and more!
Original work by the artists will be incorporated throughout the installation—much of it produced using processes popular in the 19th century.

#2: What inspired this project?
This is our first collaboration, and it came out of a chance meeting revolving around talks we were both doing at the MIA surrounding work we each did for their photography Art Cart.  We got chatting about photography, ghosts, and the paranormal and quickly discovered we had very similar interests artistically, historically, and aesthetically.  Beyond our art practice, we both do have a stake in the subject matter sharing a life-long interest; Lacey has studied to be a Spiritualist medium and healer and Nathan has been involved with a paranormal investigation group for many years. In terms of the topic, we’re not outsiders looking in, we’re insiders trying to get people to join us.  Kerry Morgan and the MCAD gallery gave us the amazing opportunity and support to embark on this project that’s been evolving for months.

Also the love and curiosity of Spiritualism and all things otherworldly.  We’re very interested in the role that photography plays as a tool to simultaneously prove and disprove, prophet and denier.

#3: Do you think there are ghosts at Union Depot? Do you think the stage of a historical building holds some weight for this project (aside from the obvious: but more so the structural aspects of the building and the experiences that NS attendees might have with it)?
Hmm…there must be. Any place that took so much labor and energy to build, and has housed so many people passing through retains that energy. Traveling is very emotional for many people– meetings, reunions or tearful goodbyes are played out over and over in these public spaces that travelers have no choice but be comfortable showing their emotions–much more so than at the grocery store. We like the idea of Northern Spark participants walking the same halls, interacting with the same materials that thousands of travelers have.
Something else–often when buildings are renovated or have construction going on, ghosts and paranormal energy will rise to the surface, after being stirred up after sitting dormant. If there are ghosts at the Union Depot, we bet they like seeing it in its restored glory.

Check out Manifestations blog, here: Spiritmanifestations.tumblr.com





Also, Northern Spark is still needing help with its Kickstarter campaign.  Receive an original cyanotype by us while supporting this great organization.







Sunday, May 26, 2013

Spirit Trumpets

Cross-post from the Manifestations blog, but, that's ok.





Spirit trumpets are long, cone shaped horns used to communicate with ghosts at seances. The instruments were first made popular in the late 19th century by Spiritualist mediums like Etta Wriedt and Johnathan Koons.
During seances, trumpets typically float about in a dimly lit room. A luminous band and the end of the horn helps participants distinguish its movements in the dark.
Spiritualists believe that trumpets work as an amplifier for psychic energy and can increase the volume of a ghost’s voice. Younger and weaker spirits are thought to almost always use a trumpet to communicate with humans.
Johnathan Koons is widely credited as the first medium to use a trumpet for spirit communication. At his spirit room in Athens, Ohio, ghosts would begin seances by saying “good evening friends” through the trumpet and would then ask participants what type of materializations they wished to see.
The first spirit trumpets were often homemade and produced from an assortment of metals. It was not until the early 1900s that E.A. Eckel began to offer commercialized spirit trumpets from his tin shop in Anderson, Indiana.
Today a typical trumpet experience lasts about two to three hours with cones levitating and vibrating on several different occasions. Once a spirit has left the room the trumpet will crash to the floor marking the end of the seance.

Minnie Harrison






















We have a Spirit Trumpet thanks to Modern American Spiritualists in St. Louis, MO. It will be at Manifestations.

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Manifestations News!!
  
We have been invited to speak at the Northern Spark Pre-Festival Artist talk.

Join us for an evening of short, rapid-fire presentations by several Northern Spark artists.

Using a Pecha Kucha format each artist or team will introduce the project they are preparing for the festival. Representing a diversity of disciplines from architecture and design to music and video to participatory dance, together these artworks are emblematic of Northern Spark as a whole: multi-media, interactive, and up all night.

The program will conclude with a Q & A moderated by festival Artistic Director Steve Dietz that aims to reveal what it means to present work in the public sphere, overnight, for thousands of people.

Presenting artists include: John Keston, Jennifer Newsome Carruthers and Tom Carruthers, Nathan Lewis and Lacey Prpic Hedtke, Ananya Dance Theater, Seitu Jones, Pritika Chowdry and more TBA.

6:30 pm Cash bar open
7:00 pm Presentations
8:00 pm Moderated Q & A


Check out the FB group here

Also, we made a Tumblr....so we're firing on all cylinders now!  The page promises to continue to haunt well after the NS event.

SpiritManifestations.Tumblr.Com