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Nicholas Tayler: The Parallels Almanac
Exploring the connection between global systems and human mysticism, The Parallels Almanac is a multi-media epistemology of a constructed mythology.
"...people inhabiting all frequencies of the socioeconomic spectrum are intentionally reaching for some of the oldest navigational tools known to humankind: sacred ritual and metaphysical speculation, spiritual regimen and natural spell." Erik Davis, Techgnosis: Myth, Magic and Mysticism in the Age of Information, (London: Serpent's Tale, 1999)
As the cultural critic Erik Davis proposed, we are living in an intensely technologised world, made possible by the ability to 'know' about characteristics of our universe and its forces through science. But this doesn't quell our appetite to appreciate the unknown side of it. Rather the opposite, new technologies, especially those which transcend and break down borders between countries, cities, homes and offices, fuel our appetite for the mystical and magical and the need to speculate about the nature of our world.
The Parallels Almanac is a made mythology that presents such a mystical, speculative interpretation of the world. A world populated by the spirits of omnipresent systems like money and airliners, where a Maori warrior makes a quest in reaction to the way these immense global architectures have changed his culture.
Located online within a digital almanac, this story entitled "Kupe and the Whale" is shown through a network of films, audio, photographs, drawings and texts visualizing and re-telling an oral history constructed by the artist. Each component is accessed through graphic maps containing the What, Why and How of this extensive project.
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Nicholas Tayler (b. New Zealand, 1982) moved to the United Kingdom as a child. He has studied photography at Central St Martins, and architecture at the Edinburgh College of Art and the Danish Royal Academy of Arts. Most recently he completed a diploma at the Bartlett School of Architecture in London within Unit 15, which explores ideas of architecture through film, video, animation & motion graphics. His work is fuelled by meditating on what exists beyond what is visible and rational, to create speculative, mythical visions of the ways humans interact with the globally present systems and structures that have great influence on our ability to live, move and communicate. He uses many types of digital and analogue media, encompassing video, animation, sculpture and performance to meticulously fabricate the augmented universes in which his stories live.
Nicholas also co-edits and publishes The Space Between Magazine, an annual of creativity showcasing new work from across the broadest spectrum of creative disciplines.