HEMELLIGGAAM OR THE ATTEMPT TO BE HERE NOW

THE APPEARANCE

CENTRAL METHODIST MISSION, CAPE TOWN

16 FEB - 4 MARCH 2024

 

Emerging out of a research lasting over a period of 6 years, the works which make up Hemelliggaam’ s shimmering puzzle, presented here under the emblematic title of The Appearance, could/can be viewed as ‘encounters’. Places where nature, human presence, artefacts and technology signify something other than what they outright appear to be precisely because, through a mysterious and ancestral act of magic, they connect with the perturbing silence of the sky, of the night, of the vast spaces of the stark south of the South African land which the work of Tommaso Fiscaletti and Nic Grobler’ s work looks at and investigates, and from which it draws inspiration.

Born as a visual exploration of the relationship between human beings/environment/astronomy, the collection of works, photographs, videos, and objects, often combined in laborious installations, has over the years taken the form of a realistic and tangible analytical study that often starts from the detail to arrive at the whole, understood as a group or sequence of organised works. The collection of works - which we could almost identify as a ‘trove’, for being so extensive and thoughtful - is in fact arranged according to chapters, within which each work references the previous one as well as the next. For this reason, Hemelliggaam can be defined as a shimmering jigsaw puzzle, where different points of view, interpretations and perspectives are combined each time according to different formulas, providing a version at the same time different yet similar to others. Nor should we forget the constant reference to some authors and texts from Afrikaans Science Fiction literature of the last century, to be interpreted as a further possible key, or rather, a tool for approaching various works that lend themselves, more than others, to the landscape and its indigenous plant, animal and human population.

Fiscaletti and Grobler act as conscious witnesses to these encounters, gathering evidence from them and searching for additional proof, never ceasing to look around and observe the sky, towards the stars and beyond. Photography, as well as moving images, records and documents these ‘encounters’, making them visible and accessible as well as if they were doors allowing us to unwittingly move from one universe to another.

Filippo Maggia


Curator Filippo Maggia
Sound compositions Alessandro Gigli
Scientific team Mattia Vaccari, Lucia Marchetti and Michelle Cluver from Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of the Western Cape.
Consultant Davide Chinigò

Exhibition supported and promoted by
The Italian Cultural Institute in South Africa

The Consulate of Italy in Cape Town

Cape Town Art Fair

Project supported by
National Research Foundation

 

THE SHIP
HEMELLIGGAAM OR THE ATTEMPT TO BE HERE NOW

Everard Read, Cape Town
2 - 21 August 2021

'I believe it comes in peace. The lines are too harmonious to be designed by devils.'
Prof Roland Mertyn (From "Swart Ster oor Die Karoo", Jan Rabie 1957)

The ship is an installation from the project/archive Hemelliggaam Or The Attempt To Be Here Now. Images, videos and fragments from the project attempting to connect and resonate in the historically maritime surrounding area, in the house of the old Harbour Master:

All the contents, composing 'The ship', including some inspired by pages of old Afrikaans science fiction novels, are about the human journey, how we perceive ourselves and our connection with the cosmos.


'The ship' is sailing between waves and stars, between past and present, reality and fiction.
'The ship' is discovering, is passing, is disappearing.


 

Installation photographs by Micheal Hall

 

Selected works

 

Videos - on monitor or projection

1 Horisontal - 3 videos loop

DAVID AND BELLA, OBSERVATORY, WESTERN CAPE

The Carina Nebula. This is an exposure of several hours taken with the Astrographic telescope of the Royal Observatory.
A series of drawings of Halley's comet made by Sir John Herschel from Cape Town around 1835.
The McClean telescope dating from around 1900.
The bottom end of the Astrographic telescope. A glass photographic plate was placed in the plateholder.
Oldest dome at the Royal Observatory, dating from 1847.
The Royal Observatory photographed from across the Black River, with Devil's Peak in the background.
David Gill, who was Director at the Royal Observatory 1879-1907 at his desk in 1888 - with his wife Bella.
A total eclipse blotting out the bright Sun and showing the Corona around it.

Plates on loan from the South African Astronomical Observatory, descriptions courtesy of Prof Ian Glass.

THERE WAS NOTHING, TABLE MOUNTAIN, CAPE TOWN, WESTERN CAPE

The report came through on the radio… “We had to rise over Wenmmershoek and Du Toits kloof mountains, and they were difficult to identify. But the Hex River Valley's mountains were unmistakable. To our left is Matroosberg now. Nowhere even a light. Nothing…”

Video inspired by ‘Swart ster oor die Karoo’ (Black star over the Karoo) by Jan Rabie, 1957. On the future Earth where the main characters find themselves the earth is covered with ice and everyone lives underground. In Cape Town the entrance is on top of Table Mountain.

Translated from Afrikaans to English.

SKA-AP, SKA SITE, NORTHERN CAPE

'Feral horses and sheep within the core site were also causing problems, apparently, and so too the jackal populations now able to move freely between adjoining farms and a space functioning as a de facto (soon to be formalised) nature reserve. The result is a curious superposition of cutting-edge technology and incipient wilderness.'

From 'Impossible Images: Radio Astronomy, the Square Kilometre Array and the Art of Seeing' by Hedley Twidle

 

2 Vertical - 3 videos loop

:LOELOERAAI IN COURT, OUDTSHOORN, WESTERN CAPE

“The prisoner will finish three months of hard labour and then be sent away… “Wait, constable,” he says, “I’ve got something to say to the magistrate. Official,” he continues to the magistrate, “I don’t blame you. You are doing what you perceive as your duty. I also have a duty that I’m committed to - a commitment to myself and to those that I represent here alone. In the world that I’m coming from, we are law abiding, not under the force of the magistrates and constables and jails and chains, but out of love for one another.’

From Loeloeraai, 1923, CJ Langenhoven (Translated from the original Afrikaans)

KOM TERUG, KWAGGA (COME BACK, QUAGGA), ITEMBA ACCELERATOR-BASED SCIENCES, CAPE TOWN, WESTERN CAPE

Quagga were all wiped out by pioneer hunters in Southern Africa during the 19th century. They were a subspecies of Zebra basically similar in appearance, with wider stripes that disappear towards the back of their bodies. In 1987 a programme started to try and resurrect the Quagga using selective breeding. Those found on the grounds of the iThemba Lab (the largest facility of Africa for particle and nuclear research) is part of this ongoing programme.

EVA STELLARIS PLANT, ITHEMBA LABS, WESTERN CAPE

“For the first time, she looks up, her gaze straight and honest, her voice sad: “My assignment was only and specifically the biological and hydroponic work I did here in Saakni. Please, you have the power over my life, but not my words."

From ‘Swart ster oor die Karoo’ (Black star over the Karoo) by Jan Rabie, 1957. Translated from the original Afrikaans. Eva Stellaris was sent as a helper from the future. Part of her command involved only answering in a way that complements the knowledge that already exists and not help directly, “that man should, after all, help himself.”


IBART JANSE VAN RENSBURG, SALPETERKOP, NORTHERN CAPE

‘To think, that we went back - we went forward. Everything was white, ice, there was nothing. The ice was already a few hundred meters high when we left, but now there were no mountains, no hills. Just ice, as far as you could see, just ice. There was no Karoo, you didn’t even know which country you were in, just ice, people had to live underground - and still, what kind of life was this?’

Video and words inspired by ‘Swart ster oor die Karoo’ by Jan Rabie, 1957. Novel about a future human race that has to live in a solar system where the Sun has gone dark. They travel back in time and stop the earth from turning so that the one side becomes cold and the other side hot, to try persuade humans of the past to change their ways for the sake of the future - they also take them to the future where the physically adapted humans are all living underground to stay alive.

ANNA VAN WYK, SUTHERLAND, NORTHERN CAPE

’If I could see myself a few years ago I’d be a millionaire - if I only knew then what I know now. A person shouldn’t just look at and compare yourself to others - you need to look at yourself and let yourself grow into life so that you reach out to others.’

Video inspired by ‘Swart ster oor die Karoo’ (Black star over the Karoo) by Jan Rabie, 1957. In the novel there is a chapter where the humans are given the opportunity to see themselves - as they are in the past, but ahead of the time they left to travel to the future.

 

HEMELLIGGAAM OR THE ATTEMPT TO BE HERE NOW

The Hole

Pretoria Art Museum

25 FEBRUARY to 25 APRIL

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“Hemelliggaam (Afrikaans for heavenly body) or The Attempt To Be Here Now” is a visual archive, composed of photographs, video, installations, text and sounds, that constantly moves between the reality of significant scientific sites and the imaginative fragments of old Afrikaans science fiction novels, with particular reference to two of the most existential and emblematic writers, Jan Rabie and CJ Langenhoven.

“The Hole” is a site-specific installation at the Pretoria Art Museum initiated by work that includes an inseparable connection between the existence of humankind and the physical effects of space on Earth. From the Tswaing Crater meteor impact site, mining areas in Johannesburg to an amateur astronomy community in Brakpan, the two artists are reconnecting with the words of Jan Rabie: ‘When one man speaks to another, he stands not only in front of a man, but also in front of a stone, a flower, a star.’

(‘The Evolution of Nationalism’ by Jan Rabie, 1957)

Curator Filippo Maggia
Sound compositions Alessandro Gigli
Scientific team Mattia Vaccari, Lucia Marchetti and Michelle Cluver from Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of the Western Cape.
Consultant Davide Chinigò

Exhibition supported and promoted by
The Italian Cultural Institute
Hosting partner
Pretoria Art Museum, City of Tshwane

Project supported by
National Research Foundation

 

EXHIBITION PRESS RELEASE 24 JAN 2021 • ‘THE HOLE’ • PRETORIA ART MUSEUM

DOWNLOAD PRESS KIT • INVITE & IMAGES

 

HEMELLIGGAAM or THE ATTEMPT TO BE HERE NOW
TOMMASO FISCALETTI and NIC GROBLER

The Hole

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PRETORIA ART MUSEUM
25 FEBRUARY - 25 APRIL, 2021 
Cnr Francis Baard and Wessels Street, Arcadia Park, Arcadia

012 358 6750 | http://bit.ly/PretoriaArtMuseum
art.museum@tshwane.gov.za
GPS coordinates: Lat: 25°44'53.63”S; Long: 28°12'45.20”E

TEMPORARY COVID19 HOURS
TUESDAYS - FRIDAYS 10:00 to 16:00
SATURDAYS 10:00 to 14:00
Closed on Sundays, Mondays and public holidays

 

Exhibition supported and promoted by
The Italian Cultural Institute

 

Hemelliggaam or The Attempt To Be Here Now is a visual archive, composed of photographs, video, installations, text and sounds that constantly moves between the reality of significant scientific sites and the imaginative fragments of old Afrikaans science fiction novels in particular reference to one of the most existential and emblematic writers, Jan Rabie (with his books 'Swart Ster oor die Karoo' - Black Star over the Karoo 1957, Die Groen Planeet - The Green Planet 1961, and 'Die Hemelblom' - Heaven Flower 1971).

‘To look down, is to look up.’ A selection from the Hemelliggaam archive is initiated by work from the Tswaing Crater and mining areas in Johannesburg. ‘The Hole’ exhibition, is a site specific installation at the Pretoria Art Museum.

 

“There are legends, nobody will go there at night. It’s called the hills of the spirits.”

Tom Learmont, Sci-fi writer - In reference to the Tswaing crater

 
 

Curator Filippo Maggia
Sound compositions Alessandro Gigli
Scientific team Mattia Vaccari, Lucia Marchetti and Michelle Cluver from Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of the Western Cape.
Consultant Davide Chinigò

Hosting partner
Pretoria Art Museum, City of Tshwane

Project supported by
National Research Foundation



THEHOLE_supporter_logos.jpg




Tommaso Fiscaletti and Nic Grobler are both artists based in Cape Town, South Africa.

Their collaboration, started in 2016, is focused on "Hemelliggaam Or The Attempt To Be Here Now”.

Work from the collaboration has been exhibited in museums in South Africa and internationally including the Iziko South African Museum, Cape Town and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Guarene, Italy. They have been among the winners of CAP (Contemporary African Photography) Prize 2018. For the artists, the exhibitions form an essential part of the creative process, where the viewer is invited to experience unique sequences of the work, revealing the mutable structure of the archive. They are currently working on the third and final chapter of the project.

 
 
 

PRESS RELEASE IMAGES & VIDEO

SCALE MODEL, TSWAING CRATER, SOSHANGUVE, PRETORIA

‘Well there is a big mark in time, Soutpan, Tswaing. I don’t know how many million people would die if it would happen today but it was 200 000 years ago. I forget the size of the meteorite - a few thousand tons, and it threw up this central point and a ring of hills. There are legends, nobody will go there at night. It’s called the hills of the spirits.’

Tom Learmont, Sci-fi Writer, Johannesburg

 
OFENTSE LETEBELE, IZIKO PLANETARIUM PRESENTER, CAPE TOWN Ofentse Letebele is part of the team working to translate some of the old Planetarium shows to the new Digital Dome system.

OFENTSE LETEBELE, IZIKO PLANETARIUM PRESENTER, CAPE TOWN

Ofentse Letebele is part of the team working to translate some of the old Planetarium shows to the new Digital Dome system.

 

NEUTRON THERAPY VAULT, ITHEMBA LABS, CAPE TOWN

‘The wooden bench looks primitive but neutron activates anything, so another material would become radioactive…’

Charlotte Vandervoorde, Researcher, IThemba LABS, Cape Town.

 

WRECKAGE MUSEUM, TSWAING CRATER, SOSHANGUVE, PRETORIA

The name Tswaing means "place of salt" in Tswana and the crater was also formerly known in English as Pretoria Saltpan crater and in Afrikaans as Soutpankrater.

The meteorite was probably about the size of a an average house and it would have taken no more than 10 seconds to slam into the ground after entering the Earth's atmosphere, releasing the energy of about 100 Hiroshima atom bombs. Life within a 35 kilometre radius would have been wiped out.

 

FACE IN THE HOLE, SA NATIONAL SPACE AGENCY # 1, HERMANUS

South Africa maintains a scientific base in Antartica where it is ideal to study the Southern Atlantic Magnetic Anomaly - covering an area where communication systems are more vulnerable to damages and interruptions caused by high levels of radiation from space.

‘Face in the hole’ inside space science educational centre at SANSA.

 

SCATTERING CHAMBER AND TARGET LADDER, ITHEMBA LABS, CAPE TOWN

'In other words, it's a place where we try to reproduce stars in a laboratory - stars are the place where there is a high density of protons, neutrons and from this high density, there are collisions that are going to create heavier elements. So this is what we are trying to do now, we are trying to reproduce what happens in stars, in the laboratory.'

Dr. Faïçal Azaiez, Director at iThemba LABS, Laboratory for Accelerator-Based Sciences.

 

THE OLD MINE #5, GOLD REEF CITY, JOHANNESBURG, GAUTENG

 

BEAM-DUMP, ITHEMBA LABS, CAPE TOWN

'This is a beam dump - where the beam comes through from the target. This is the end of protons life! Obviously if we don't stop protons here, they will carry on travelling and they would probably be leaving the facility and moving at a speed equal to around the world four times in a second... usually we have an average of maybe 10 million, millions, particles per second ending their life here"

Dr. Pete Jones, Senior Researcher, IThemba LABS, Cape Town

 

STERKFONTEIN CAVES #2, JOHANNESBURG, GAUTENG

 
NEW PETROL STATION, CARNARVON, NORTHERN CAPE “Greetings, Earthling. We come in peace. Take us to your leader.”Alien in an old Petrol pump joke. Petrol pump found in the small town of Carnarvon near the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) site - where there…

NEW PETROL STATION, CARNARVON, NORTHERN CAPE

“Greetings, Earthling. We come in peace. Take us to your leader.”

Alien in an old Petrol pump joke. Petrol pump found in the small town of Carnarvon near the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) site - where there is an international collaboration around building the world’s largest radio telescope.

 

STILL FROM VIDEO

KOM TERUG, KWAGGA (COME BACK, QUAGGA), ITEMBA ACCELERATOR-BASED SCIENCES, CAPE TOWN, WESTERN CAPE

Quagga were all wiped out by pioneer hunters in Southern Africa during the 19th century. They were a subspecies of Zebra basically similar in appearance, with wider stripes that disappear towards the back of their bodies. In 1987 a programme started to try and resurrect the Quagga using selective breeding. Those found on the grounds of the iThemba Lab (the largest facility of Africa for particle and nuclear research) is part of this ongoing programme.

 

STILL FROM VIDEO

ANNA VAN WYK, SUTHERLAND, NORTHERN CAPE

’If I could see myself a few years ago I’d be a millionaire - if I only knew then what I know now. A person shouldn’t just look at and compare yourself to others - you need to look at yourself and let yourself grow into life so that you reach out to others.’

Video inspired by ‘Swart ster oor die Karoo’ (Black star over the Karoo) by Jan Rabie, 1957. In the novel there is a chapter where the humans are given the opportunity to see themselves - as they are in the past, but ahead of the time they left to travel to the future.

 

THE ATTEMPT # 2, 2020 INSTALLATION OF COPIES, PHOTOGRAPHS, NATURAL ELEMENTS

THE ATTEMPT # 2, 2020, close up

 

FOR MORE DETAIL • info@hemelliggaam.com

 
 

 

Intimate Chapter three special edition

 

In occasion of The Mirror Exhibition in November 2020, and the first presentation of Chapter Three, we are printing our first editions of the natural objects (Hemelliggaame / Heavenly Bodies).

All the objects are illuminated only by reflecting sunlight.

During the printing process and tests we’ve realised that we loved also a smaller intimate size for these precious objects, and included for this series an edition of 15 at 21x21cm.

As we’ve collected these objects travelling on various trips, and grown to love them, we’d now like share them as much as we can.

Pricing and details below.

Lots of love Nic & Tommaso

•


 
 
 

Chapter Three

Intimate edition • Hahnemuhle Baryta Cotton Paper

21x21cm
Edition of 15+1(ap)
$100 / R1500

(Framing R400 extra, museum glass on request)

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Standard editions • Hahnemuhle Baryta Cotton Paper + Mounted on Plexiglass

38.5x38.5cm and 68x68cm • Edition of 4+1(ap) each size • Inquire for pricing

 

Order / Inquire

 
 

The Mirror • A Tribute to The South African Astronomical Observatory


THE OLD GRANARY
27 OCTOBER - 25 NOVEMBER 2020
CORNER OF LONGMARKET AND HARRINGTON, CAPE TOWN
OUTDOOR 24hrs, INDOOR BY APPOINTMENT (TUES AND THURS 5-7pm)

 
 
 
 
 

VIRTUAL EXHIBITION (Suggested browser Chrome on Desktop)

 

Exhibition video Introduction with Prof Hedley Twidle

 

Hemelliggaam or The Attempt To Be Here Now is a visual archive, composed of photographs, video, installations, text and sounds that constantly moves between the reality of significant scientific sites and the imaginative fragments of old Afrikaans science fiction novels in particular reference to one of the most existential and emblematic writers, Jan Rabie (with his books 'Swart Ster oor die Karoo' - Black Star over the Karoo 1957, Die Groen Planeet - The Green Planet 1961, and 'Die Hemelblom' - Heaven Flower 1971).

The Mirror is a site-specific installation that can be experienced for 24hours a day at the Old Granary, created to celebrate 200 years of The South African Astronomical Observatory, where images, video text and sounds are overlapping- suggesting unpredictable scenarios. Inside the exhibition, found drawings, documents and old photographs are pushing the vision of the universal gesture of humans to find answers through science and the connection with nature, beyond the origins of humankind – investigating the meaning of representation and enticing the viewer to create a personal experience throughout a "constellation of elements".

 

Curator Filippo Maggia
Sound compositions Alessandro Gigli
Scientific team Mattia Vaccari, Lucia Marchetti and Michelle Cluver from Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of the Western Cape.
Consultant Davide Chinigò

Supported by
National Research Foundation
Institute of Italian Culture, Pretoria
Consulate of Italy in Cape Town
Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation

Special thanks to
Friends of Thandolwethu
Badhen Lab
Prof Hedley Twidle

Bad Hen Lab

11 x 70x57 Prints completed

10 x 120x96 Prints completed

5 x 70x56 • Print ready - still to be printed

120x96 • Test Prints & adjustments

70x56 • Test prints & adjustments

120x96 rescan and test print

8 x (68 x 68 or 38.5 x 38.5) Objects to test print

DA GUARENE ALL’ETNA “G/E 19 - BOILING PROJECTS”

FONDAZIONE SANDRETTO RE REBAUDENGO, GUARENE, IT, SEPT- NOV 2019

 
 

FONDAZIONE OELLE, PALAZZO DUCHI DI SANTO STEFANO, TAORMINA, IT, FEB-AUG 2020

 
HEMELLIGGAAM_ALL_LOGOS_COMPANY_GARDENS+(1).jpg
 

HEMELLIGGAAM or THE ATTEMPT TO BE HERE NOW (CHAPTER ONE) 
TOMMASO FISCALETTI and NIC GROBLER
CAP PRIZE EXHIBITION

IAF BASEL, THEATERPLATZ, BASEL, SEPTEMBER 2018

 
 
HEMELLIGGAAM_ALL_LOGOS_COMPANY_GARDENS+(1).jpg
 

HEMELLIGGAAM or THE ATTEMPT TO BE HERE NOW (CHAPTER ONE) 
TOMMASO FISCALETTI and NIC GROBLER
CURATED BY FILIPPO MAGGIA

SAAO, OBSERVATORY, CAPE TOWN, 2018

 
 

A collaboration between artists Tommaso Fiscaletti and Nic Grobler.
Scientic team - Mattia Vaccari, Lucia Marchetti and Michelle Cluver from Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of the Western Cape. Sound compositions by Alessandro Gigli. 

MAIN SPONSORS

National Research Foundation (NRF) , Consulate of Italy in Cape Town and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.

INSTITUTIONAL PARTNER

University of the Western Cape. 

HEMELLIGGAAM_ALL_LOGOS_COMPANY_GARDENS+(1).jpg
 

HEMELLIGGAAM or THE ATTEMPT TO BE HERE NOW (CHAPTER ONE) 
TOMMASO FISCALETTI and NIC GROBLER
CURATED BY FILIPPO MAGGIA

CARNARVON MUSEUM & KAREEBERG LIBRARY, MAY - AUGUST 2019

 
 

A collaboration between artists Tommaso Fiscaletti and Nic Grobler.
Scientic team - Mattia Vaccari, Lucia Marchetti and Michelle Cluver from Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of the Western Cape. Sound compositions by Alessandro Gigli. 

MAIN SPONSORS

National Research Foundation (NRF) , Consulate of Italy in Cape Town and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.

INSTITUTIONAL PARTNER

University of the Western Cape. 

HEMELLIGGAAM_ALL_LOGOS_COMPANY_GARDENS+(1).jpg