"At precisely 3:02 a.m. this morning, and for the next three hours during the “Blood Moon” total lunar eclipse, artist Lia Chavez stood waist deep in the cold seawater at New York’s Brookhaven Hamlet. Spinning fire in a circle, she performed Mirrormind in collaboration with the Something Machine gallery." - Artnet News

The Something Machine is pleased to present “Mirrormind,” a durational performance with light artist Lia Chavez and her recently launched luxury creative house, Hildegaard. Furthering the artist’s exploration of light emanating from the inner and outer cosmos, Chavez’s new performance will be accompanied by the release of an exclusive limited edition Hildegaard Haute Botanical creation.

Mirrormind will take place throughout the full duration of the November 8, 2022 total Blood Moon eclipse, from 3:02am to 6:41am at Bay Avenue and Ocean place in Brookhaven Hamlet, New York. The artist will facilitate a participatory anointing ritual.

Mirrormind conceives of the seashore as an “anointing temple,” a space for reflection upon which meaningful empirical correspondences between two sets of phenomena – astronomical and human – connect through the principle of archetypal synchronicity.

Chavez’s new performance work draws upon the synthesizing worldview of Neoplatonism, highlighting the underlying unity between celestial patterns and human affairs, proposing a radical unification of the cosmos and psyche.

"Elicits enlightenment for mind, body, and soul alike." - Whitewall

Combining the artistic strategies of movement and duration, Chavez explores the painterly, ritualistic possibilities that ensue from elemental communion: reflections, refractions, shadows, vibrations and after-images occur as sea tides are modeled and patterned by the full moon. Alluding to the improvisatory creativity of a dynamic universe, the artist builds upon her long held thesis that whirls, flows and streams of water are analogous to human consciousness: set among the waves, she embodies a vessel or a buoy, receiving the unlimited transmission of wisdom directly from nature and marking space in an otherwise limitless oceanic terrain.

The new and exclusive edition of Hildegaard Mirrormind Haute Botanical Meditation Oil takes its point of historical reference from iconic anointing rituals throughout history which were intended to restore humankind to cosmic unity. Of Mirrormind, Chavez states, “this contemplative ritual belongs to my broader project of anointing the culture for the new regenerative age which acknowledges a living, fully animate cosmos pervaded by spiritual intelligence, beauty and structural perfection.”

"Mirrormind invokes the sanctuary of the seashore, connecting its notable power for healing and contemplation to the starry skies above us and grounded mother nature below us." - Whitewall

The exclusive edition is created incorporating the artist’s unique approach to combining bodily encounters with cosmic light which usher in deeper forms of enlightenment. Operating in a similar manner to the artist’s previous neuroscientific-technological works – in which stroboscopic light is used to “penetrate” the pineal gland and entrain the brainwaves of the viewer to a state of coherence – here, the ephemeral experience of light is re-conceived in a heavier, liquid form, as a plant oil concentrate for physical absorption and metaphysical enlightenment. In her disruption of symbolic coordinates, the artist re-imagines the skin as a site of direct philosophical discourse that allows for a new conceptual space to emerge.

Hildegaard Mirrormind is released in a limited edition of 108 individually numbered and engraved bottles. The edition draws upon the mirroring embedded within the Sun-Moon relationship. The distance of Earth from the Sun is 108 times the diameter of the Sun. Likewise, the distance between the Earth and the Moon is also 108 times the diameter of the Moon. The coincidence that the Sun and Moon both have approximately the same ratio between their diameters and their distances to Earth means their apparent sizes in Earth’s sky are about the same, which is what makes total eclipses possible.

In creating a spiraling optical experience of cosmic correspondences, Chavez’s new work challenges the authority of rationality to grapple with the interconnected nature of reality. With Mirrormind, the artist invites her audience to join her in a ritual of contemplating the great mysteries of our existence, as primordial sensations prime the viewer for a limitless, insoluble bond with Nature.