Jeremy Shaw’s work constitutes an ongoing exploration of altered states of thoughts and the cultural and scientific practices that aspire to map transcendental expertise. Usually positioned on the intersection of metaphysics and spirituality, his works are captivated by phenomena that defy rational clarification—from the private drive of mystical experiences to the promise of technological singularity—and the idea programs that evolve of their pursuit. Shaw’s movies, installations, and sculptures assemble worlds that mix the asserted rationality and objectivity of scientific analysis with fiction, hypothesis, and disparate cultural and aesthetic references, creating what he refers to as “assisted vérité”. Mining the frameworks of philosophy, anthropology, and sociology, his multivalent follow attracts upon the languages of different cultures, documentary image-making, conceptual artwork, and music video to create alchemical works that exist considerably out of time.
The exhibition “In the direction of Logarithmic Delay” presents three new sculptural works that have interaction with the idea of border zones and the disorientation caused by the dissolution of spatial and perceptual thresholds. The primary work guests encounter, Most Horizon (2024), includes a triptych of stained-glass home windows—akin to these generally seen in church buildings and different locations of worship—which are set into one in every of quite a lot of a uncooked, unfinished drywalls that reappear all through the exhibition. The composition consists of lead strains tapering in the direction of the centre of the center window and color fields of handblown glass that shift from yellow to orange to crimson and, lastly, to black. The design delineates a quickly approaching–but by no means arriving—borderline that remembers the centripetal vortices prevalent in science-fiction movies and tv exhibits in addition to early videogame graphics. Fusing the majesty of spiritual iconography with pop-cultural depictions of digital horizons, Most Horizon merges sacred and profane parts to think about the potential of contemporary, technologically pushed perception programs and their aspirations of infinity.
In distinction to the “wanting past” explicitly invoked by Most Horizon, the work The Distance Between Infinite Folds Is Nonetheless You (2025) focuses on a spatial anomaly that exists on each a bodily and a conceptual stage: on this case, a fragile triangular sculpture created out of three scientific flame-worked glasses. As an try to map a 4-D idea in three dimensions, these fused “Klein bottles” represent an instance of a non-orientable floor, a kind whose inside and out of doors surfaces are supplanted by a singular aspect on which regular vectors repeatedly shift throughout vertical and horizontal planes. The inside base of every glass chamber is coated with the residue of vaporized dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, a substance on which Shaw beforehand based mostly a 2004 video set up. Recognized for its excessive psychedelic results, DMT generally elicits an expertise likened to that of quantum area that unfolds in the direction of an virtually kaleidoscopic infinity. Its presence within the sculpture additional amplifies each the unbelievable potentials of multiversal realms and the fraught nature of their illustration in our present actuality.
Within the closing room, guests encounter Devotion Construction (Amassed) (2025), a metal votive stand housing 247 crimson handblown glass candleholders. Organized in a grid, they include wax LED candles, a few of that are flickering at random intervals, accompanied by the faint scent of burning paraffin wax. After some time, the quiet sound of clinking glass will be heard because the flickering turns into extra widespread. The artificial flames slowly coalesce right into a single-point perspective vortex animation that engulfs the grid, accompanied by synchronized pulsing sounds from inside. The animated wormhole accelerates and spins in the direction of a feverish, surround-sound crescendo, manifesting the hypnotic dramaturgy of prayer, piety, and devotion in an interaction of sunshine, shadow, motion, and sound. Maybe one has lastly arrived at an occasion horizon of types, even whether it is situated on the finish of an unusual gallery room.
Curated by
Damian Lentini
at Secession, Vienna
till August 31, 2025
