In the Iliad, Homer describes Aegis as a surface of gold like scaly snake-skin that sometimes appears with serpents, and others, with the Gorgon herself. It is often associated with the Greek goddess Athena, who wears it for protection either as a shield or an animal skin. The Aegis can unleash the roar of ten thousand dragons, or create powerful windstorms and thunders. It offers protection like an armour, and exerts control as fear. Aegis is a physical and magical object whose power lies in its immaterial force to coerce.
The modern concept of aegis means to do something under the protection of a strong force. The meaning is somewhere in between control or conditioning; sponsorship or guidance. Today, aegis gives its name to warfare such as Aegis Combat System, also to a private military and security company in the UK, or to an experiment at CERN about antimatter. Aegis has come to signify both control and protection.
Like any myth, Aegis is perceived as less than science, but as an untrue or unworthy force. Its opposite, logos, represents the truth. Regardless of its sciencelessness, a myth contains messages and metaphoric truths about how to live, and provides a worldview that carries on a perspective that we use to navigate the world. Scientific and technical thinking is not as far removed as we think: the development of a technology is not universal but situated. The philosopher Yuk Hui explains it as cosmotechnics, as a way to refer to the ways in which technics emerges under specific cosmological conditions. For him, there is no binary opposition between myth and science, only a progression between the two.
We understand the digital as combination of devices, practices and experiences. It appears as an invisible form of control, an encrypted surveillance mechanism that we understand little and trust much. It works like a double-edged sword, fluid and immaterial, exerting control, monitoring us; and, at the same time, protecting us, guiding us through this second life we now have to navigate. It is a technics. And, like any other, it is also rooted in a particular cosmological vision, and has also developed its own myths. Myth and science are intertwined.
If we were to reconstruct the Aegis for the digital realm, one would need to think again about today’s forms of protection and control. But the myth of protection is gendered in that it positions men as the defenders and guardians of women’s physical well-being and security. It associates security and control with masculinity, and vulnerability and dependence with femininity. In this exhibition, the artists question the legitimacy and acceptability of a model of protection that has lost its value, especially when it comes to the digital sphere.
Under the Aegis, they speculate on the duality of the guardianship, looking into the progressive movement between myth and science. The artworks in the exhibition become tangible experiences that reflect on how digital technologies are immaterial forces that are coercive. In this way, the artists rewrite the myth of guardianship in digital terms, reclaiming and reappropriating the Aegis that has always been theirs.

Aegis
Written by Barbara Cueto

This is by no means a hollow statement, because after zooming back in through all powers, and diving into our cellular structures, this emptiness is eerily reflected on the microscopic level of the 10th power of minus ten, at 0.01 angstrom.

A similar disorienting sense of relativity can be applied to time: we may notice our Earth’s crust’s movements sometimes as hiccups in the form of volcano eruptions or earth quakes. Despite their potential significant regional impact, they only suggest minor movements on a planetary scale. We tend to think of the planet as fairly stable grounds, but experienced in deep time, Earth behaves more like a boiling, chunky stew. Glaciers flow like syrup, islands pop up and vanish, coastlines fold out of sight, mountain ranges rise sharply and erode into friendly hills, and whole seas evaporate while other basins are being filled. It’s all very exhilarating.

Our current, surprisingly cuddly, upper layer of life wouldn’t have been possible if not for the violent bombardments of meteors our younger planet had to endure. From destruction, an incredibly complicated and elegant biosphere emerged. It’s the conundrum at the roots of myths and at the hearts of circular belief systems.

We’re usually only reminded of our planet’s inner workings when disruptive pyroclastic clouds cancel our flights. Nicolas Sassoon’s ‘Prophets’, sculptures series is literally based on lava rocks, and offers us a view on their own origins. It’s as if these antenna’ed creatures are here, in possibly the least geological space in existence – a contemporary art gallery – to gently remind us of the unimaginable turmoil that is in a constant grind beneath our feet.

Kelly Richardson, on the other hand, transports us out of our troubled atmosphere all the way to the 11th power of ten, and provides us with a breathtaking view on the asteroid belt in our solar system. We find ourselves in a region between Mars – a planet Richardson previously visited in the monumental installation, ‘Mariner 9’ – and Jupiter. The countless slowly rotating bodies appear as crisp as if we’re looking out of the windows of a space ship; all potential new Chixculub impactors – named after the meteor that helped to end the reign of the dinosaurs which resulted in the rise of mammals, including us. The cool light bouncing off of the indifferent chunks of space debris is a distant counterpart of the glowing embers dancing in some of Richardson’s other virtual camera frames.

When we return to the human power of one, we’re left with the realisation that while our species’ behaviour is responsible for the current global extinction event, it’s equally capable of producing uniquely imaginative visions. Art alone can’t save the world but the creation of art may very well be considered as the yin to our destructive yang.

This emptiness is normal.
Text by Alexandra Crouwers.