Merlin, Madagascar, and Mori: The Mystic Road to Stonehenge

Mystic origins of the cosmically synced Transcircle 1.1. 

Jacquetta Hawkes, the British archaeologist and writer, once stated, “Every age has the Stonehenge it deserves—or desires.”

I don’t know which Stonehenge Mariko Mori deserves, but looking at Transcircle 1.1, the Stonehenge-inspired, LED-powered circle of monoliths at the center of her current Rebirth exhibition, it’s clear which one she desires: one that serves as a channel for our ancestors.

With Transcircle’s combination of ancient British and Japanese spirituality, specifically Druidic and Shinto traditions of ancestor worship, Mori joins a long line of people to associate the monoliths with themes of death and rebirth.

Archaeologists and researchers continue to debate the purpose of the standing stones, with theories ranging from the conventional (Stonehenge is some sort of giant celestial observatory) to the curious (the stones were chosen for their acoustic qualities). Though our temporal separation from the founding of the wonder, dated some 5000 years ago, complicates explanation, that hasn’t stopped many, including Mori herself, from positing their own interpretations.

One of the earliest and most enduring stories surrounding Stonehenge stems from Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain (1136), perhaps best known as the source of much of the King Arthur mythos. Strangely enough, one of the main actors in the Arthur drama also plays an important part in Monmouth’s account of the construction of Stonehenge.

Wishing to erect a monument to several hundred British nobles slaughtered at the hands of the treacherous Hengist, Aurelius Ambrosius, King of the Britons, consults Merlin for advice. “Send for the Giants’ Dance that is on Killare,” the wizard says, prompting an expedition of gallant knights to bring back the stones, or Giants’ Dance, in question. After wresting the stones from the Irish king, Ambrosius’s forces convey them back to Britain, where Merlin uses his magic to set them in their current state. No pullies and cranes. No armies of workers. No rafts. Just magic.

Most relevant to Mori’s work is the fact that Monmouth interprets Stonehenge as a place of burial and commemoration, rather than as the astronomical instrument that others later took it to be. While Mori’s Transcircle 1.1 focuses much more on rebirth than on the finality of earthly burial, both this piece and Monmouth’s Stonehenge tie the monoliths to some aspect of death, exemplifying the “creative stream [reaching] right down to the present” that Mori uses to describe her affinity to that other ancient legacy of Japan’s Jōmon period.

Talking about “creative streams” Mori takes her greatest artistic liberties in interpreting the monoliths through the lens of early Druidism, an idea both widely repudiated and enduringly popular. Though the Druids probably did not appear until around 400 BC, several thousand years after the beginning of the construction of Stonehenge, and also conducted the majority of their rites in groves rather than in temples, this knowledge has not deterred Mori and others from echoing the undoubtedly romantic idea of Druidic mysteries.

“Stonehenge as Druidic temple” owes much to the work of John Aubrey, a 17th-century English antiquarian who both excavated the ring of holes now named after him and wrongly attributed the monoliths to the work of Celtic Druids. However erroneous, this connection, strengthened by a generation of Romantics in later centuries, proved enduring enough to influence both Mori and current neo-pagan groups. While Mori celebrates this tradition through her art, neo-pagans do so by descending upon Stonehenge to mark the solstice—prominent among them, a bearded former soldier who goes by the title of Rev King Arthur Uther Pendragon, Battle Chieftain of the Council of British Druid Orders. [Note: Mori's recent "Sun Pillar" installed on an island in Okinawa prefecture also utilizes the light of the solstice sun (video).]

Arthurian legends and Druidic tie-ins have largely fallen out of favor in today’s Stonehenge research. That being said, an endeavor known as the Stonehenge Riverside Project, responsible for some major excavations of the site in recent years, reflects elements of both traditions, as well as of Mori’s own work.

In his writings on Stonehenge, Geoffrey of Monmouth makes the claim that the stones were transported by giants “from the farthest ends of Africa.” The thought of transporting these monoliths over a distance of a few miles, much less several thousand, seems almost impossibly daunting, placing Geoffrey’s story firmly in the realm of fiction. However, Mike Parker Pearson, the English archaeologist behind the Riverside Project, wouldn’t write Africa out of the story entirely.

Back in 1998, Pearson and Ramilisonina, a Malagasy archaeologist, published a groundbreaking paper in which they drew parallels between Stonehenge and Madagascar’s tradition of ancestor worship, putting forth the idea of a “Stonehenge for the ancestors.” The two drew a comparison between Stonehenge as a home for the dead and Woodhenge, a nearby collection of timber circles they believe to be the remains of a human settlement, as a home for the living. Pearson and Ramilisonina saw the same dynamic at work in Madagascar. Speaking with National Geographic in June of this year, Pearson says,

In Madagascar, they build in stone for the ancestors because it is a permanent medium—permanent like the ancestors—whereas they live in wooden houses because those will perish just like human life will end. I laughed initially and said, "Well, I don't think that's necessarily really going to have anything to do with Britain 5,000 years ago." 

But I realized that actually we did have timber circles very close to the stone circle of Stonehenge. That was quite a bombshell for me.

In light of this research, Mori’s reimagining of Stonehenge in Transcircle 1.1 as a kind of antenna for cosmic and primal energies begins to look far less speculative. Indeed, the immense age and incompleteness of Stonehenge make it open to a variety of interpretations, like all high art and low art.

You can almost imagine the same thing happening in reverse with Transcircle 1.1. Now a centerpiece of an artist’s rebirth, centuries later it falls into disrepair, turning up in some mundane location. What was it for? Who made it? With what purpose? A sun marker. Cemetery. A temple. All of the above. Or none. We can dream, and wonder.

--Andres Oliver



Image: Transcircle 1.1, 2004. Stone, Corian, LED, real-time control system; 132 3/8 inches diam., each stone 43 3/8 × 22 1/4 × 13 1/2 inches. Courtesy of The Mori Art Museum, Tokyo. Installation photograph by Richard Goodbody.

Cosmic Womb With A View: Mariko Mori's 'White Hole'

Video teaser of Mariko Mori's White Hole.

From the absence of light, energy is reborn into the universe, though maybe not this one. So goes the poetic, circular and interdimensional theory of white holes, the astrophysical yang to black holes' yin.

White holes have never been observed and may not even exist (though you can make an Earth-bound approximation in your kitchen sink), but their time-bending, space-expanding conceptual power fueled the imagination of Mariko Mori, giving birth to the star of her survey of recent work at Japan Society Gallery.

Making its North American debut at the Society exhibition, Mori's White Hole is an immersive installation presenting a visual and physical approximation of the white hole phenomenon. A Turrellesque play on space and light, the piece stems from years of thought and is even referenced in a series of meticulous, meditative drawings featured in the exhibition.

According to the exhibition catalog, "Since 2006, Mori's drawings and installations have been inspired by the idea of invisible light as a natural and cosmic energy force that can restore the balance between nature and man." The catalog explains:

In recent years there has been increasing debate concerning white holes—that is, inversions of the space-time phenomena known as black holes—that may suggest solutions to the Einstein field equations. Mori became fascinated by the theoretical existence of white holes as possible reversals of black holes, cosmic entities that, transcending our normal imaginative horizons can swallow up vast quantities of physical matter and even light itself…

Mori envisioned black holes feeding on stars and wondered how that energy would return. "Death is not the end, but a new beginning. It leads to rebirth," she says in the catalog. "I envision white holes as the cosmic womb of the spirits of stars… giving birth to new energies… I hope this work serves as a simulacrum of death and rebirth, promoting us to rethink the multidimensional universe that defies our imagination."

For such a grand vision of the invisible, the resulting work is a sensorial masterpiece. The Daily Beast called it the "pinnacle of the exhibition…completing the circle of life that is a constant theme throughout the show."

Walking through the spiral hallway into the almost pitch black, circular room, the senses become immediately disoriented. A convex lens is fixated on a slanted ceiling emanating a faint amount of soft white light. This light becomes instantaneously hypostasizing as it swirls into different patterns. Looking up at the swirling lights, the body immediately relaxes - everything disappears from consciousness allowing a brief time of personal meditation" 

Time Out thought "it appears for all the world like a UFO ready to beam you aboard, or maybe a moonlit cloud, glowing against a blackened sky. Somehow, it’s no surprise to learn that the artist created the work in collaboration with an astrophysicist."

White Wall called it "the most impressive of all the pieces… It is in this muted and peaceful space that the viewer is able to feel something and transcend."

It is the transcendent genius of Mori's Rebirth that in the same vessel that visitors are carried back several millennia to the cradle of Japan's ancient Jōmon culture, they are catapulted though infinite possibilities of space, time and imagination.

Mariko Mori's White Hole VII (2009). Courtesy of SCAI THE BATHHOUSE, Tokyo and Sean Kelly, New York

--SJ

A Star Is Reborn: Mariko Mori Expands Through Inner And Outer Space

White Hole shatters negative space and thoughts. Photo by Richard Goodbody.

When you Google Mariko Mori, you come face-to-face with images of a living doll—literally. The artist's 1994 piece Play With Me had her stationed outside a Tokyo toy store in anime-esque garb, with baby-blue pigtails and a plastic breastplate over a short, metallic dress. In another work from that year, Mori rode the subway in character as an alien visitor just arrived in Tokyo.

Today Japan Society Gallery launches Mori's first solo exhibition in New York in more than 10 years. A divergence from her work of centuries past (well, the 90s), Rebirth: Recent Work by Mariko Mori brings the focus on nature, conveying both its power and serenity.

The show “has a very urgent message about reconnecting with nature, which is not just an issue that’s being talked about by artists. It is a global concern right now,” says Dr. Miwako Tezuka, director of Japan Society Gallery, who curated the exhibition. “We’ve been experiencing such harsh weather. Everybody’s concerned about what’s going on with nature.”

Just a year ago this month, the brightest city in the world went dark for weeks when late-season Hurricane Sandy eliminated electricity from the bottom half of Manhattan. Polar bears swim for days. Mori’s home country will long feel the effects of the March 2011 tsunami.

While once Mariko Mori represented pop aesthetics and the subculture of Japan, her recent work has brought her back to basics: as in the beginning of it all.

“She’s going back to the roots," says Tezuka. "Not the cultural roots of Japan like she was doing before, but even farther back into a prehistoric period where there really were no cultural differences in the world. Where people didn’t have electricity or machines and really lived closely, intimately with nature.”

Unlike her past work, the pieces in Rebirth were born from Mori’s personal research, often from her travels to places like Egypt, Brazil, and Scotland, where so much ancient architecture still stands.

The show is full of light and shapes, a pale, shifting exhibition reminiscent of the sun rising over a young Earth again and again. Depending on one’s perspective, personal associations could range from the Book of Genesis to the opening sequence of Star Wars to whatever Terrence Malick’s been up to. Rare will be the attendee who doesn't spot Stonehenge.

The centerpiece of the show is an installation called White Hole (pictured above): the opposite of space's terrifying black holes of childhood fascination and nightmares. A domed enclosure built in the south gallery, White Hole starts as a pitch-dark space and gradually illuminates with the projection of swirling light.

Tezuka explains: “It’s based on the theory of a white hole--the antithesis of a black hole. Everything that was killed by the black hole shapes together as a renewed energy and emerges from the white hole. It’s an astrophysics theory that Mariko has been very interested in in recent years.”

Another celestial piece (though firmly fixed to the gallery floor) is Transcircle 1.1 Nine pillars made of stone and an industrial acrylic polymer synchronize with the position of the nine (yes, nine!) planets in our solar system. Their individual pastel colors pulsate at speeds reflecting the planets' orbits around the sun.

Rebirth is an ethereal picture of prehistory, astronomy, geology, ancient religion and technology, showing how they all mix in the world around us.

When asked how to sum up the show in a sentence, Tezuka said “pure” and then laughed, realizing she didn't need half a dozen more words to convey its Zen-like ambiance. “A lot of things are white”—Mori’s signature color—“and the basic concept is pure and simple: be aware of the presence of nature.”

Though the galleries proper are on the second floor, visitors will get a taste of this pure simplicity when they are greeted by Ring, hanging against the waterfall of the Society's indoor bamboo garden.

“Mariko placed it in an environment that symbolizes nature, where there’s water, earth, plants and light from above,” Tezuka says. The piece is a prototype for a large-scale version that will be hung above a Brazilian waterfall in the near future.

From sunset each evening through Sunday, Mori’s latest video work Ālaya lights up the building just above the Society’s entryway for not only gallery-goers but passersby on the busy streets outside. The title alludes to the fundamental consciousness all sentient beings share in Buddhist philosophy.

It’s worth coming in to escape the masses, as Tezuka notes: “New York life is so busy all the time. You are surrounded with noise and different crowds. Rebirth will calm you down. Instead of going to yoga, come see this exhibition!”

Rebirth: Recent Work by Mariko Mori is on view at Japan Society through January 12, 2014.

--Marisa Rindone

Mariko Mori's Ring. Photo by the author. Via.