The Deluge Ark(ive) is a fairytale that starts thirteen thousand years ago when our ancestors were witness to a catastrophic event. Finally the ice began to melt; the oceans began to rise and the land to flood, an environmental apocalypse irrigating the myth-memory of human consciousness.
Note: The Deluge Ark(ive) project comprises an exhibition, an Artist’s book and linked performances. The debut event was held at the new Moonah Arts Centre in Hobart, Tasmania (16th November to the 16th December 2017).
The project arose in a curious manner. In 2013 I was engaged by Sabanci University in Istanbul as a visiting artist and professor with a mission to develop and exhibit a new work based upon creative research in the Black Sea that concerned the pre-historic Deluge, that indeed flooded through the Bosphorus raising the water levels of what is now known as the Black Sea by some 147 metres.
As fate would have it my travel plans were dashed by a confronting medical diagnosis which drastically restricted my movements and extinguished my hopes of adventures into pre-classical history. However my fascination with the narratives of the Deluge drove me to re-structure the project into an imaginative, ficto-critical text which has in turn, driven the creation of the six new sound-sculptures that form the Deluge Ark(ive) exhibition.
As a professional practicing artist with an extensive studio practice in Sound sculpture and environmental and public art projects this new creative method – writing a book of historically based fiction and then reimagining the text-journey as sound sculpture was both a challenge and a revelation. The process has intrigued me to the degree that I am now embarking on a much more extensive fiction writing project – concerning the relationship of Cinema and the Afterlife – and who knows where this will lead…..
http://www.sonicobjects.com/index.php/projects/more/the_deluge_arkive/