Ritual Transmission Agency feat. Jorja Rynne, Juergen Baumann, Carl Brandi, and Joshua Lettereux 

‘Whilst it [sacred space] is a controlled environment, it is not stationary or permanent...There are transformations within transformations, a magic circle that pivots, dashes, and circumambulates.’

- David Carrasco


'Hierotopy', derived from the Greek words hieros (meaning ‘sacred’) and topos (meaning ‘space’), refers to the creation of sacred spaces through a comprehensive system of interrelationships, including action, sound, smell, light, and other sensory elements. This term was coined by art historian Alexei Lidov to introduce a new way of conceptualising ritualised environments. Within this framework, artifacts are no longer viewed as isolated objects but rather as active agents within a dynamic, spatial network. 

Over the past months, Jorja Rynne (Sydney, AUS), Juergen Baumann (Winterthur, CHE), Carl Brandi (Düsseldorf, DEU), and Joshua Lettereux (Marseille, FRA) have been invited by platform/collective Ritual Transmission Agency (Sydney, AUS) to contribute to a remote dialogue across the hemispheres. Their practices are united by an understanding of locality, psychogeography, and the creation of figures/entities through the imaginal realm.

The site-specific group exhibition, VI: Cuneiform Architecture, Canticle Chorus presents a ‘meta-hierotopia’ that seeks to bring forth its own creation, in the space of Stroboskop, a garage-turned-exhibition-space in Warsaw, Poland. This meta-heterotopic site exists as the manifestation of its own ideal, summoned into actuality through its own presence as a medium, signifying a rupture within profane space, transcending layers of physical and virtual topologies. How can we navigate a site that is Egregoric, materialized through collective will, a hyperstition auto-summoning its own existence - a magic circle demarcated by shifting boundaries? This exhibition represents an experiment in the collective desire to shape sacred space, diffused across virtual and physical worlds.

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Ritual Transmission Agency (Sydney, AUS)
@ritual.transmission.agency

Ritual Transmission Agency [RTA] is an off-site platform based in Sydney, (AUS). Since 2021, their nomadic exhibitions have responded to various locations, from a 12th century castle in Carcassonne (FRA), to an ex-military bunker in Naarm (AUS). These ‘transmissions’ exist both online and IRL, using documentation itself as a medium. Each private pilgrimage is flattened into jpegs and cast into the algorithm as votive offerings. Forthcoming projects include a programme of solo and group exhibitions in London (UK).

‘In Vedic religion, Ṛta refers to the principle of natural order which regulates and coordinates the operation of the universe and everything within it. It is the last surviving word in any Indo-European language to preserve the etymological root definition of ‘art’. The RTAngelocene has begun.’


Felix Ashford
@content_creator.1120

Felix Ashford is an emerging curator, writer, and artist who explores the gallery as a potential site of (re)activation. Currently working in Sydney, (AUS), he will be relocating to London, (UK) at the beginning of 2024. Informed by a Bachelors in Visual Art and Studies in Religion at the University of Sydney, his research centers around post-digital sacrality, museology, neo-medievalism, and Hierotopy. In his curatorial practice, Ashford often incorporates performance, sound, lighting, and hardware to construct totalised numinous environments. In 2021, Ashford founded the independent off-site platform Ritual Transmission Agency (RTA).


Jorja Rynne (Sydney, AUS)
@palej3wel

Jorja Rynne is a Sydney-based artist and student at the Sydney College of the Arts, who in working across digital mediums and sculpture, explores intertextual knowings of panpsychic becoming and processes of alchemical transmutation. Her metaxic structures - autonomous yet instrumental - are willed into form through their essential purpose to fulfill their function as the conduit for the destabilisation of herself. Her work has been exhibited at Backspace, Articulate Gallery, and Verge Gallery in Sydney, AU.


Carl Brandi (Düsseldorf, DEU)
@libradranc

Carl Brandi constructs a narrative continuity of an imaginary realm through the use of  games and their accompanying documentation. Characters and events are brought to  life through various forms of gameplay, including roleplay, performance, and board games.  The world he creates is chronicled through watercolors and prose, which serve as  both documentation and mythos of their reality. With every instance of gameplay, new  settlements are added to the map of their mythology, whether they exist inside, outside,  or in-between commonly accepted beliefs. Brandi’s artistic practice traverses the fields of  archaeology, fantasy, and entertainment. He draws upon the secret knowledge of these  fields to inform his creative process and employs unconventional methods to explore them.  Through this practice, he is able to delve deeper into the complexities of his imaginary  world and its inhabitants. Playgrounds for this growing realm have been, among others, The  Hangar (BCN/ES), K21 Kunstsammlung NRW (DUS/GER), Futur3 Festival (KI/GER), and  Künstlerhaus Dortmund (DO/GER).


Joshua Lettereux (Marseille, FRA)
@nihiliste_hydraulique

Juergen Baumann (Winterthur, CHE)
@juergen_baumann