claudia esslinger
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Civil Divination explores the decaying power of desire in arenas of power such as corporate and political life. It was developed in response to the actions of powerful political figures in another era and yet is awakened again in 2025. Here the symbol of the divining rod is investigated from the point of view of the practitioner and the practiced upon.  It uses metaphors for the power plays of those who have their private lives scrutinized in public. Historically the divining rod has been used to seek what is valuable by those who have the power to do so.  The idea of the rod as a mysterious scepter certainly makes sense as a symbol of the power of public office.     
In Civil Divination ( the title inspired by “Civil Disobedience”), hundreds of rust-covered divining rods swarm the gallery pointing toward a steel ladder-like form with a gut-covered stretcher hanging from it.  A video projection of female figures swimming upstream interacts with the texture of the gut as slowly and purposefully they move up and away from the camera, potentially evading the powerful diviner.  Below the stretcher, weighing it down, is a small monitor with the rhythmic thrusting sound of an old machine keeping an insistent beat. The audio and video of the monitor grate against that of the projection to create a jarring pulse that is both enveloping and disturbing.  In order for the physical experience to be complete, viewers must enter the forest of divining rods.  They follow a narrow opening allowing them to approach the stretcher until they are enveloped and when they turn to leave, they become a target of the rods pointing in their direction.


Civil Divination was exhibited at the College of Wooster Art Museum 1998 and SPACES, Cleveland in the fall of 1999.
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  • Current
  • Installation/Media
    • Distant Tracings
    • Host
    • Double Vision
    • States of Being
    • Video Sculptures
    • Motion Pictures
    • Horizon
    • La Medida >
      • La Medida: Act 5: Proportion
      • La Medida Act 4: Meter
      • La Medida: Act 3: Frequency and Amplitude
      • La Medida: Act 2 Interpolation
      • La Medida: Act 1 Modulation
    • The Synergy Project
    • Texture Mapping II
    • Civil Divination
    • Projected Memories
    • Breathing Room
    • Barriers
    • Retopia
    • Plucking the Songbird
    • Suburban Comfort
    • Spoems
    • Searching for the Aurora
    • Stereopsis
  • Film
    • The (Snow) Migrant
    • Altered Seas, Altered States
    • Sparrow
    • Distant Tracings
    • Vestiges/ Solus
    • MovingGMA
    • Breathing Lessons
    • Cistern
    • Frequency and Amplitude
    • Avis Urbanus
    • InnerArbor
    • Render
    • Absent/ Present
    • La Medida y Cabo de Hornos
    • Trapeze
    • Texture Mapping
  • Photo
    • Specimens and Reflections
    • The (Snow) Migrant
    • Morphology
    • Sparrow
    • Dreams
    • Empty
  • CV and Bio
  • Design
  • Collaboration Links
  • Student Work
  • Sketchbook