Susan MacWilliam
Book Spheres
2013-14 Installation, Sculpture
Shelves, inkjet paper, plastic spheres
Dimensions variable
Indulging in the visual aesthetic of parapsychology book covers Book Spheres presents an expansive vista in which the artist imagines the book as telepathic device 'transmitting' information from writer (sender) to reader (receiver).
Book Spheres, in solo show AN ANSWER IS EXPECTED, QUAD, Derby, 2014
Book Spheres presents an expansive vista that indulges in the graphic qualities and designs of parapsychology book covers. Through their communication of ideas from writer (sender) to reader (receiver) MacWilliam imagines the book as telepathic device, functioning as a portal to knowledge and a means of navigating and making sense of the world.
Book Spheres alludes to the wealth and vastness of learning contained in a library of books and the incapacity of a single human being to attain complete knowledge. Book Spheres presents imagery and titles from the Alex Tanous Library, Rhine Research Center, Durham, North Carolina, and from the artist’s personal book collection.
Book Spheres consists over 80 spheres presented on custom made shelves of varying lengths attached directly to the gallery wall.
Book Spheres, in Psychic Lighthouse, Model Arts, Sligo, 2015 | Photograph: Heike Thiele
Book Spheres, in solo show AN ANSWER IS EXPECTED, QUAD, Derby, 2014
Book Spheres, in Psychic Lighthouse, Model Arts, Sligo, 2015 | Photograph: Heike Thiele
Book Spheres was originally conceived as part of AN ANSWER IS EXPECTED (2013-14), a body of sculpture and video work that considers the historic and groundbreaking experimental ESP (extrasensory perception) work of parapsychologist Dr J.B. Rhine (1895-1980). Regarded as the Father of Modern Parapsychology Rhine was a leading researcher and published author. Rhine was interested in testing ESP, telepathy, psychokinesis and precognition through laboratory methods acceptable to science. Rhine began his renowned experimental research in the 1930s and developed tests employing the identification of unseen cards and the prediction of dice rolls.
AN ANSWER IS EXPECTED pursues the artist's fascination in the researcher's quest for answers and proof and reflects on the lives and personaliities, and the work and experimental apparatus of those involved in parapsychology. A 1934 telegram found in the archives of the Parapsychology Laboratory, housed at Duke University, Durham, NC, and carrying a sticker demanding 'AN ANSWER IS EXPECTED BY THE SENDER OF THIS MESSAGE' provides the title for the body of work.
AN ANSWER IS EXPECTED is developed from the artist's 2011 residency working with the Rhine Research Center and Parapsychology Laboratory Records, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.
AN ANSWER IS EXPECTED pursues the artist's fascination in the researcher's quest for answers and proof and reflects on the lives and personaliities, and the work and experimental apparatus of those involved in parapsychology. A 1934 telegram found in the archives of the Parapsychology Laboratory, housed at Duke University, Durham, NC, and carrying a sticker demanding 'AN ANSWER IS EXPECTED BY THE SENDER OF THIS MESSAGE' provides the title for the body of work.
AN ANSWER IS EXPECTED is developed from the artist's 2011 residency working with the Rhine Research Center and Parapsychology Laboratory Records, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.
Book Spheres, in Psychic Lighthouse, Model Arts, Sligo, 2015 | Photograph: Heike Thiele
Book Spheres, in survey exhibition Susan MacWilliam: Modern Experiments, F.E. McWilliam Gallery, Banbridge, 2016
| | | Across The Unknown | | | A New Approach To Psychical Research | | | Between Heaven And Earth | | | Between Two Worlds | | | Beyond Doubt | | | Beyond Telepathy | | | Beyond The Darkness | | | Beyond The Reach Of Sense | | | Challenge Of Psychical Research | | | Challenge Of The Unknown | | | Dream Telepathy | | | Encountering The Unseen | | | ESP And Personality Patterns | | | ESP | | | ESP And You | | | Extrasensory Perception | | | ESP In Life And Lab | | | Extrasensory Perception | | | Experiments In Distance Influence | | | Experimental Psychical Research | | | Explore Your Psychic World | | | Explorer Of The Mind | | | Extrasensory Perception | | | Fantastic Loophole | | | Fenomenos PSI | | | From Duke To FRNM | | | Ghosts And Poltergeists | | | Ghosts Around The House | | | Ghost Hunter | | | Here And Hereafter | | | Hidden Channels Of The Mind | | | How To Make ESP Work For You | | | In Search Of Hereafter | | | Matter Mind And Meaning | | | Mental Radio | | | Mind Over Matter | | | Miracle Of The Mind | | | Modern Experiments In Telepathy | | | Mysterious Phenomena Of The Human Psyche | | | New Frontiers Of The Mind | | | New World Of The Mind | | | One Clear Call | | | Out Of This World | | | Parapsychology | | | Parapsychology Today | | | Popular Handbook For ESP | | | Psychic Phenomena | | | Psychokinese | | | Psychokinesis | | | Science And ESP | | | She Follows The Psychic Path | | | Telepathy | | | Telephone Between Worlds | | | Test Your ESP | | | The Elusive Science – Origins Of Experimental Psychical Research | | | The ESP Papers | | | The ESP Reader | | | The Eternity Of Time | | | The Evidence For Spirit Healing | | | The Experimenter’s Dilema | | | The Invisible World | | | The Listeners | | | The Logic Of Science | | | The Other Side | | | The Power Of Perception | | | The Problem Of Knowledge | | | The Psychic Mafia | | | The Psychic Sense | | | The Roots Of Coincidence | | | The Serial Universe | | | The Sixth Sense | | | The Truth About ESP | | | The Unfolding Universe | | | The World Of The Unexplained | | | The World Within | | | Thought Transference | | | Towards The Hereafter | | | Unknown But Known | | | Yes We Do Survive | | |
Book Spheres, in survey exhibition Susan MacWilliam: Modern Experiments, F.E. McWilliam Gallery, Banbridge, 2016
Book Spheres, in survey exhibition Susan MacWilliam: Modern Experiments, F.E. McWilliam Gallery, Banbridge, 2016
Book Spheres, in survey exhibition Susan MacWilliam: Modern Experiments,
F.E. McWilliam Gallery, Banbridge, 2016