ZODIAC NERVOUS SYSTEM
2014
ALUMINIUM, SERIES OF 12
300×300×0.5 CM EACH
HERE: Aries (head), Taurus (throat, chest), Gemini (lungs), Virgo (stomach and belly), Libra (kidneys and internal genitalia), Scorpio (external genitalia), Sagittarius (thighs, liver), Pisces (feet)
The Zodiac Man is an image type unique to the history of medicine. First documented in the eleventh century, this curious figure originally flourished in folding almanacs and medical manuscripts in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Today, this figure represents the margins of medical history, though its “rejection by modern science is irrelevant…to an historical appreciation” of its meaning. These are the words of art historian Harry Bober, who further wrote that The Zodiac Man “represented the epitome of an exact science” for its time. That science—though derided as “irrational” at various points since its peak—was, in the eyes of its late-medieval and early-modern practitioners, built upon a “rational” substrate: the precisely calculable and predictable order of the heavens. That celestial order, in turn, influenced terrestrial events—like weather and humoral health—was widely admitted, as well as widely expressed by The Zodiac Man. This figure conveys interrelation between celestial events and humoral health by mapping the signs of the Zodiac onto the human body.
Twelve sculptures in the stands incarnate the 'nervous system' of an archetipical Zodiac Man. Its body is imagined as an invisible gaseous presence, hardly noticeable but ubiquitous and omnipervasive, whose nerves emerge in the exhibition space as massive electric shocks. The choice to depict these energies through a nervous system underscores their role in transmitting impulses that govern both physical sensations and metaphysical experiences, as this series reveals how unseen forces can impact our daily lives. The gaseous presence they represent may be elusive but is undeniably influential—much like gravity or magnetic fields.
ZODIAC NERVOUS SYSTEM
2014
ALUMINIUM, SERIES OF 12
300×300×0.5 CM EACH
HERE: Aries (head), Taurus (throat, chest), Gemini (lungs), Virgo (stomach and belly), Libra (kidneys and internal genitalia), Scorpio (external genitalia), Sagittarius (thighs, liver), Pisces (feet)
The Zodiac Man is an image type unique to the history of medicine. First documented in the eleventh century, this curious figure originally flourished in folding almanacs and medical manuscripts in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Today, this figure represents the margins of medical history, though its “rejection by modern science is irrelevant…to an historical appreciation” of its meaning. These are the words of art historian Harry Bober, who further wrote that The Zodiac Man “represented the epitome of an exact science” for its time. That science—though derided as “irrational” at various points since its peak—was, in the eyes of its late-medieval and early-modern practitioners, built upon a “rational” substrate: the precisely calculable and predictable order of the heavens. That celestial order, in turn, influenced terrestrial events—like weather and humoral health—was widely admitted, as well as widely expressed by The Zodiac Man. This figure conveys interrelation between celestial events and humoral health by mapping the signs of the Zodiac onto the human body.
Twelve sculptures in the stands incarnate the 'nervous system' of an archetipical Zodiac Man. Its body is imagined as an invisible gaseous presence, hardly noticeable but ubiquitous and omnipervasive, whose nerves emerge in the exhibition space as massive electric shocks. The choice to depict these energies through a nervous system underscores their role in transmitting impulses that govern both physical sensations and metaphysical experiences, as this series reveals how unseen forces can impact our daily lives. The gaseous presence they represent may be elusive but is undeniably influential—much like gravity or magnetic fields.