Nymphalis antiopa  (2007/2008) – the Latin term for the butterfly more commonly known as Mourning Cloak or Camberwell Beauty – shows an elfish girl, covered and surrounded by a cloud of still and fluttering black fringed butterflies. The butterflies spread across the stretched out naked body of the vulnerable sleeping or dreaming child. Only they show signs of life and movement. The girl’s body is just gently stirred by her own breathing, now and again one can see her eyelids slightly twitch. Both living spheres emanate an atmosphere of delicateness and fragility.Since Antiquity the iconography of the butterfly has been culturally connected to the human soul. For example during the Hellenistic period where memorial stones pictured butterflies leaving the skulls of the deceased as symbols of their souls.

The video work runs in an endless loop of extreme slow motion, long shots alternate with details of the butterfly-covered child’s body. The body seems like a mysterious landscape, and the butterflies like bizarre, slightly eerie flying objects beyond time and scale. The fading in and cross fading in the video produces unreal moments: butterflies disappear or appear from nowhere, materialising and dematerialising with an almost hypnotic effect. With its capacity for imagination, hypnosis opens an inner realm between waking and sleeping, in which people show a heightened concentration.

Inner and Outer Space
Art vibrating between new media, the body and a search for identity
by Angelika Beckmann