SIGIL

is a sketch towards a live construction of John Dee's Sigillum Dei Aemeth, a complex occult pentacle described in his grimoire Quinti Libri Mysteriorum as allowing the magician the power to commune with angels and archangels. I’m particularly interested in the extensive mathematical calculations required to construct this mystical object. While contemporary sensibilities may relegate math and magic to opposite ends of a spectrum of rationality, Dee lived in a time where there was little if any distinction between investigations of what we now call science, and the occult. “Natural philosophers" of the era blurred the line between the rational and irrational--or, rather, there was no line to begin with--and SIGIL juxtaposes these two modes of thought in a contemporary setting to indicate their co-constructive nature. Plus I think it looks cool.

SIGIL was performed as part of Come Together (8) at Frascati Theater in Amsterdam, by Ruth Borg, Andrea Božić, Barbara Miše, Billy Mullaney, Venuri Perera, and Elioa Steffen
Photo by Julia Willms