Thursdays during the exhibition from 5:00 – 6:00 pm, Alexander Rosenberg will be demonstrating the apparatus (described below) in the exhibition and talking informally about the project.

HYPERPYREXIC is the first iteration of a body of work that explores extreme elevation of temperature in the human body and the resulting dissociative states, delusions and revelations that arise as this fragile corporeal apparatus crosses the edge of the narrow (about 1.8 degrees fahrenheit tolerance) thermal line it can comfortably inhabit.

In a thermochemical distillation process occurring over the duration of the exhibition, printed words will be dissolved off the pages of books of poetry and prose alluding to fever-induced states and will be processed into an essential oil. This oil will be used to fill a fluid filled lens integrated in a heated viewing device to observe inverted schematic drawings of moral and quasi-religious systems inspired by feverish states onset by a rigorous movement-based practice and derived from literary sources.

The work will change subtly over the course of the exhibition. A small library of fever-related texts will grow and diminish as the books are read and processed, and the still will be fired intermittently. The fluid filled double convex magnifying lens will be filled with the accumulated essential oils from the distillation process.

Photo: Jaime Alvarez