FUTURA SPAGYRICA is a multimedia installation and participatory performance that aims to transform ancient alchemical methods for future healing of the collectively dis-eased body. Unfolding as a transcorporeal route into the human body, the path develops the eight cellar chambers of one of Prague’s oldest monuments as an anatomic itinerary, embracing the human and the non-human, form and space. 

 

The eight cellar chambers encompass eight rooms divided into two sections: spa, which divides, separates, and draws out the brain, bones, eyes, and vocal cords; and ageiros, which unites, combines, and gathers the heart, lungs, blood, spirit, and skeleton. The rooms present X-ray scans, videos, prints, framed slides, body matter, objet trouvé, and performance scores.

 

The cardinal element of this architectural, subterranean soma is the psychomagic and epitomical Collective Homunculus: a sculpture to be assembled by visitors during the weeks of the exhibit. Embodying and mapping the dis-ease of the collective body, it traces a transition from a formless state to manifestation. Everybody is invited to acknowledge spots of dis-ease, discomfort or pain in their bodies, imagining those as pieces of black clay and placing these onto the corresponding spot on the skeletal collective sculpture. At the concluding live performance, the new non-human body partakes in the act, in which people come forward to share their cures and healing practices. Through writing, dissolving and collecting, the sculpture’s black pain spots come to rest, soaking in an infusion of the collected, collective cures.

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Curated by Elis Unique and Jitka Hlaváčková

Technical director: Miloš Marek

Exhibitions views and performance photographs © Jan Černý, Michelle Adlerova, Robert Carrithers, Miloš Marek, Karla Kusa, Elis Unique and VestAndPage 2023