Curated by Kari Adelaide and Sörine Anderson during the peak of the Perseid meteor shower. The Custer Observatory, August 14, 2010, 6-8 pm

“A whirling light on the slopes of rushes…the dew of evening and the sweat of the stars are paired…in the avalanche of milk from the fierce stars…The last hem of the breezes, there where the pheasant of the moon flees and dies…Thus do ships lie down in the silver storm…It is in the sweet escape called the future, an escape that is always possible, that the stars that until now have bent over our distress are resorbed…the shadow of trees, the whirling shadow of dust, to come to grips with our shadow…my eyes were only a shadow-theater.” –André Breton

An exploration of the infinite compendium under the nightsky, systematic illumination burdened by the glowing gravity of selfhood, immutable comings and goings of revelation, a moving forest of sky-violet, confronted by the fantastical and epic unknown, poetics of visible and invisible horizons, the flux of inner and outer cosmos, arc-lit trails of lunar dust, immutable myth of the cosmos, the strike of the atmosphere and notes of unsung nebulas, forgotten infinite wanderings, a labyrinth in a field of shadow stems, untamed galactic horizons, without the landmark of place, to the celestial shadow-theater of untamed epiphanies: A convergence of practices that emulate the physical nature of the meteor itself, a phantom shedding of particles that trace the emergence of individual spectral bodies.

Tales beyond the universe, unintimidated by the tension of inner and outer cosmos, stargazing and echoing light, intangible echoing tales, poetics of the impalpable, the haze of absence and the semblance of otherworldly horizons, a hovering systematic illumination of light, stars, time and space, where specificity is outweighed by the inconceivability of infinite realities. The uncertainty of self in oblivion, and the cosmic dust of the so-called radiant.

As the Perseids have been witnessed for thousands of years, we await the gleam of necessary illusion, momentarily clinging to the transparency of the universe, with serpentine and attentive contours, the sight of waiting, the sight of watching in anxious revelatory flashes, the rotation of desire and flashing vignettes, dust-stained moments of lucidity, the impossible imprint of fantasy, with flooded light and dissolution of self, prismatic and incandescent. The paralyzing Perseids, where image becomes an untouchable prismatic fluid.

Contributing Artists: Vanessa Albury Jarrod Anderson Ronnie Bass Bhakti Baxter Jesse Bransford Jennie Hagevik Bringaker Kadar Brock Ernesto Burgos Fia Cielen Peter Clough Crystal Curtis Sonja Engelhardt Jay Henderson Juliet Jacobson Alex Jovanovich Denise Kupferschmidt Jason Leinwand Locker 03 (Jan Dhaese Edition) David Matorin Alex McQuilkin Jeremy Olson Max Razdow Gordon Terry Tithonus Jan Van Woensel

Performances by: Marthe Ramm Fortun Andrea Goldman David Merritt

Contributing Poets: Ana Bozicevic Phillip Dmochowski Eddie Hopely Amy King Noelle Kocot Mark Lamoureux Patrick Lovelace Danny Snelson Jocelyn Spaar Mary Austin Speaker