SABINE MIRLESSE 

Electric Prayers, Dowse, and Strike, 2024
Bronze & fulgurite

In researching different iterations of geomantic practices, and specifically the locating of water through the use of divining rods as one of its more common and familiar manifestations, otherwise known as dowsing in English, Mirlesse came across an etymological reference to an vertical movement evoking a point of contact with a natural force. To dowse, to strike— not unlike the moment lightning strikes earth or one strikes a sail to lower it — something vertically descending, coming both out of the ground and falling to the ground at the same time. Elongated forms made from bronze pass through fulgurite — the mineral made the moment lightning touches earth — a kind of fragile crystallization of electricity and sand. The metal traverses the hollow of the fulgurite and continues on the other side.

     

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