Alexis Palmer Karl is a multidisciplinary artist, professor at Pratt Institute and School of Visual Arts, and scholar and lecturer on magic and ritualism in art, fashion and fragrance. She has lectured extensively on ritualistic shamanic practices and folkloric magic, and the relevance of ritual within artistic culture at both the Metropolitan Museum and The Morbid Anatomy Museum, where she was the house perfumer and an exhibiting artist.

Karl’s art work is concerned with a reinterpretation of magical objects and the illustration of oracular magic through sculpture, film, gothic dark ambient music, ritual fragrance, and large scale portraits of witches. Her upcoming solo exhibition at Pratt Institute, “The Ecstasy of Forbidden Daylight”, is based on studies of 18th century accounts of witchcraft trials from her research in the UK, and a series of her lectures at The Morbid Anatomy museum, and serves to bring the archetype of the Witch into the modern era.

Light, music, sculpture, ritual, sound and performance are brought together to celebrate encounters with the numinous,

memory, time, coincidence and the transcendent.

The site-specific installation will be regularly transformed by an unfolding series of private and public rituals and performances

culminating in a 24-hour performance of a musical score for strings and percussion, formed from recordings made in Mexico and Italy

on the feast day of John the Baptist (24 June).

13 years in development, the score final score will be realised by killers from the local experimental music community.

Barry William Hale is considered one of the key exponents of esoteric art internationally. Barry is working with long term collaborator Scott Barnes, on their decades long, art/magical/psychic research project NOKO. More than just the performative aspect of Hale’s various lines of esoteric research, this incarnation of HYPRKUB 210 is the culmination of 15 years continuous work and incorporates ritual, live music, invocation and automatic art. Each day the space will house the artistic ‘residue’ of the previous day’s occult operation.

“Better to reign in Hell
than serve in Heav’n”
– John Milton

NOKO is a structured improvisational space where sonic texture is a menstruum taking cues from the ritual content, and like a fungal mycelium, visible fruiting bodies may occur. This is where the residue is available to an audience either in a live, or recorded format. There is nothing new about the format employed by this collaboration, conversely NOKO taps into what can be considered to be some of the oldest traditions regarding the use of the voice, instruments and performance. If we see technology as a continuum then there is total equivalence given to ancillary devices other than voice and percussive sounds generated by the body alone (a literal definition of cybernetics).

Although research and development of the Enochian Magical system has been a prominent focus, other directions include; A Sonic Magical investigation of the Qlipotic genii, as well as the conjuration of Beelzebub. A NOKO working is not a definitive form but an example or ‘instance’ of its (re)presentation ,like a group performing a standard, there is predefined structure but also interpretation of the work. The group being a kind of lens that will always be varied but can never be transparent or neutral to the content

NOKO is also the laboratory in which Barry tests, resolves and actualises much of his final work. This a rare opportunity to watch the artistic process unfold, and chaos congeal into form.

Barry William Hale + NOKO with Scott Barnes

What is the secret of the sphinx? Mystery of mysteries, art is a domain still not entirely conquered by the rational mind. Few are the artists who dare to explore the uncharted territories. The ones who do, however, return forever changed. Those are the torch bearers, able to see what others can’t.

It can be said that Lupe Vasconcelos is such an artist. Her work is marked by a disturbing beauty that can only be conceived under a crepuscular light.

Mysterious women, horned priestess, demons, ancient goddesses, chimeras. All these beings come unto light by the work of her insight. Strange ceremonies take place under the thread of brush and ink lines. Images of primordial chaos are born among ruins of black and red. Possessing the power of an ancient enigma, the art of Lupe Vasconcelos fatally captures the imagination of the onlooker. The singularity of the artist’s vision and the fierceness of her technique set her art apart from the rest. It’s a journey to the underworld, and one cannot help but come back completely transformed.

-Luciana Lupe Vasconcelos 2018.