ALEXANDER HAHN

electronic media artist

photo © Stephan Rohner

TRANSIT OF EARTH

2022, LED-Mosaic, 210 × 650 × 20 cm, video, 46:31’, loop, silent

edition of 3, 1/3 collection Kunstmuseum St. Gallen


Transit of Earth is a video for a fragmented LED wall, reminiscent of a mosaic or puzzle with missing parts. It is inspired by the fresco cycle lining the Salone dei Mesi (Room of the Months)  in the Ferrarese Schifanoia Palace. The video consists of twelve monthly chapters. Each one corresponds to a zodiac sign, starting with Pisces. The stage is a transparent tunnel of cosmic filaments with the sun in the middle, traversed by the moon and the planets, textured with NASA projection maps. The solar model and tunnel are generated from animated fractal noise textures. Each month begins with the transit of the ruling planet, accompanied by the signs and colors of the related zodiac. Scenes of earthly activities that I once recorded in that month appear as short videos on an oscillating magnifying glass. The lines of a poem about the nature of light scroll across the LED. It begins with the creation of light, follows both its outward dissemination and entry into the ocular portal, ending with the evocation of «a state of light pristine and un-seen.»




LIGHT!

transparent

wherever it strikes


it first reveals 

a day in march


the rays penetrate deeper

twisting and moving matter

tuning and reconfiguring

exposing ever new structures

disseminating ad infinitum


the pool

teeming with swimmers

impossible to number

suddenly

as by an inscrutable decree

they begin to wiggle

in hypnotic synchrony

forming a frenzied gyre

the center a writhing node

like the pupil of a demonic eye


I remember 

the two hostile bodies

and the shock when they collided

the outcome

a calculation of probabilities

of chance 

good and back luck

like a game of cards


they dance to 

a monophonic medieval tune

played on a stringed instrument

with a long-held bottom D as a drone

a languid amorous style of performance

with capricious rhythms at the end.


 once 

at the top of a hill 

somewhere amidst an undulating landscape

 now 

down here in this familiar concavity

 the passage lost a dissociative fugue 

maybe a shift in the landscape itself 

maybe bound to occur again 

changing everything

 even obliterating life itself 


 in this cavity

 light thrives in disarray 

but there is a woman 

who can capture it and 

shape it in some

 truly beautiful forms

 this she does in the blakean method 

by cleansing the cavity 

with corrosives and heat 

for an instant eliciting  

a state of light 

pristine and un- 

seen