Æter / Aether (copy 1)

In the exhibition AETHER, 12 Nordic artists relate to the ancient concept, which has lived a chameleon life over the centuries and still appears in everyday speech when something seems to be 'in the ether'. From being associated with Aristotle's fifth element in the celestial sphere, the aether descended to the lower layers of the air when Isaac Newton pondered how light rays might only move, though he had to end up admitting, 'I know not what this aether is' . The enigma only became more complicated when it was discovered that electromagnetic waves such as radio and telegraphy could also move in seemingly inexplicable ways, giving rise to an 'ether physics' that attributed to the ether different and contradictory properties regarding matter and energy.

Early in the 20th century, the ether was scientifically abolished while at the same time branching out into both occult-spiritual and artistic contexts. Here the etheric was understood by some as that from which matter could materialize and dematerialize, by others as a 4th spatial dimension through which the known 3 dimensions moved. Based on these plastic ideas about the ether, the 12 artists now take up the concept for a renewed examination of the relationship between time and space, energy and matter, the absolute and the empirical. Just as we find ourselves in a new time of crisis characterized by both extensive questions about our digital existence, and a spiritual and practical will for a renewed connection with our biological nature, the ether rises once again as a possible explanatory model for everything that we time cannot explain.