Résumé

Alternative Guide to the Universe explores the work of self-taught artists and architects, fringe physicists and visionary inventors, all of whom offer bracingly unorthodox perspectives on the world we live in. Eccentric and inspiring, their work re-imagines our social and cultural conventions in ways that fearlessly depart from accepted ways of thinking. Contributors to the exhibition explore fictional identities and design imaginary cities; they build healing machines and record the unseen energy flows of our bodies. They speculate on mysteries of time and space; create devices for time travel and communication with other dimensions; and fashion new letter forms designed to liberate the alphabet from the strictures of Western civilization. Taken together, their work conjures a kind of a parallel universe where ingenuity and inventiveness trump common sense and received wisdom.
Sommaire : Introduction. The Universe that Fell to Earth / by Ralph Rugoff -- Invented Selves. On Counternarrative / by Rick Moody ; Morton Bartlett / by Laurie Simmons ; Lee Godie / by Helen Luckett ; Eugene Von Bruenchenhein / by Joanne Cubbs -- Time And Space. Responding to Singularity / by Roger Cardinal ; Alfred Jensen / by William C. Agee ; Paul Laffoley / by Michael Bracewell ; Guo Fengyi / by Helen Luckett ; George Widener / by Tom Patterson ; Melvin Edward Nelson / by Peter Hastings Falk -- Cities And Buildings. Visionary Architectures / by Valerie Rousseau ; Richard Greaves / by Sarah Lombardi and Valerie Rousseau ; Bodys Isek Kingelez / by Helen Luckett ; A.G. Rizzoli / by John Beardsley ; William Scott / by Katie Kitamura ; Marcel Storr / by Laurent Danchin ; Jan Głuszak Dagarama / by Dominik Czechowski -- Codes And Technology. Symbolic Devices : Where Art, Magic and Technology Collide / by Mark Pilkington ; Ionel Talpazan / by Daniel Wojcik ; Karl Hans Janke / by Helen Luckett ; Emery Blagdon / by Leslie Umberger ; Jean Perdrizet / by Eimear Martin ; Melvin Way / by N.F. Karlins ; Rammellzee / by Dave Tompkins ; Wu Yulu / by Helen Luckett -- Fringe Physics. Physics on the Fringe / by Margaret Wertheim ; James Carter / by Margaret Wertheim ; Philip Blackmarr by Margaret Wertheim ; The Museum Of Everything / Presents Nek Chand ; History of Exhibitions and Publications.