Title:
Life/Lotto
Location: Installation at all gallery venues
Helen presents a large-scale wall based installation, which documents her attempts
to determine the winning Lottery numbers, by studying signs and ciphers hidden
within the minutiae of her everyday routine. The display aims to demonstrate
how it is possible to derive those six lucky numbers from the stains in your
coffee cup, the markings on your banana, the colour of your clothes and even
the things you scrawl on the back of your hand.
data gleaning in progress
Taking
inspiration from Socrates[1] and Pataphysics,[2]
I have assigned myself the role of the quasi-scientific meddler, whose philosopher’s
stone constitutes an amalgam, blending scientific principles with all things
whimsical and poetic. Through my own particular branch of pseudo-science known
as Quidditology,[3] I have, by examining the arcane elements
of everyday living, formulated a hypothesis for winning lottery numbers…
Life/Lotto
came to fruition from my fascination with (subliminal) signs and ciphers hidden
within the minutiae of everyday routine. By documenting the tiny nuances and
serendipitous events in my day-to-day occurrences, I have created unique divination
methodologies: Chromistry: of colour / diet, Khawology:
of coffee dregs, Klaeddr Prognostication: of clothing, Manus
Vaticination: of hand-written notes, Olfactomantic Dowsing:
of odours etc… Each sure to produce riches.
In my preoccupation with explaining the inexplicable, it is the synergy between
life-art-science that stimulates my imagination, taking the everyday into
the realms of the ‘pata-typical’.[4] I am interested
in exploring the breadth of knowledge available to me through the experiences
I encounter of the metaphysical world.
Hence, for Life/Lotto, I have rigorously monitored, over a period
of 13 weeks, a great magnitude of amassed ‘codes’, each sampled
from the happenstance of daily life, and each in need of deciphering. The
pure immensity of the data collected has made it a necessity to channel my
somewhat obsessional methodology and home in on the myriad flux and shifts
of daily occurrence.
Life/Lotto is the accumulation of hypothesis, experiment, computations,
collations, and comparisons. Most are prepared through analysis and constructed
using the conduit of the invaluable Excel database, Word document and PowerPoint
presentation (each a programme found on many computers). I have utilised these
tools to set the boundaries of my project: By restricting the permutations
of possibility, my divinations gain the potency that only becomes apparent
in simplicity.
Helen Frosi
April 2005
1.
Socrates (469 BC – 399 BC) claimed that ‘The unexamined life is
not worth living’.
2. Pataphysics ‘The science of imaginary solutions’, founded by
Alfred Jarry (1873 – 1907). See: http://home.swfla.rr.com/pataphysician/jarry.htm
for more information.
3. The artful divination of customary living: to benefit mind, body and soul.
4. The philosophy or science dedicated to studying what lies beyond the realm
of meta-typical. This itself being the study of what lies beyond the typical
(or that which is experienced, assumed, customary or normal).
