Spiritual Disobedience #1
Al Falak Al Majdoub: On wandering machines and song-maps of (no)return
[الفلك المجذوب: رسائل في المَكِينَات الهائِمة وخرائط الـاـعودة الناغِمة] by AZ OOR
Opening May 2nd, 17:30-21:00, Gemaal op Zuid
Defying time and space to allow pre-colonial Maghreb to visit us through a fragmentary catalogue of prayers, noises, characters and stories, Gemaal op Zuid proudly presents Al Falak Al Majdoub [The Entranced Orbit] as the first chapter of the exhibition series Spiritual Disobedience. Rooted in Amazigh geography and the Maghreb as a site of participation in the World, and guided by the words and absence of 16th-century Sufi and social reformist Sidi Abderhman El Majdoub, we begin our journey.
The work unfolds as a tripartite gesture: a visual production (Wall Painting), a sound installation (Electrical Wanderers), and a theory-fiction (Tales of the Electromancer). The constellation is a proto-Sufipunk tale, envisioning a time and space where technology and worldbuilding emerge from Quranic theurgy, Sufi-plural-cosmologies, and practices of reparation [Islah], reenchantment [Tazkiyah], and everyday blessing [Baraka].
At its core, Al Falak Al Majdoub is a space-fiction exploring the theology of electricity, framing Modernity itself as a theology of electricity, where the magic realm is reified into an economic and capitalist infrastructure of power. The work travels the digital barzakh [liminal realm], where cyber-utopias and colonial infrastructures collide. Al Falak Al Majdoub carves a parallel space of survival for us to inhabit: a virtual Andalus where disenchanted worlds are reenchanted. It asks: how to occupy digital realms without fracturing the Self?
[الفلك المجذوب: رسائل في المَكِينَات الهائِمة وخرائط الـاـعودة الناغِمة] by AZ OOR
Opening May 2nd, 17:30-21:00, Gemaal op Zuid
Defying time and space to allow pre-colonial Maghreb to visit us through a fragmentary catalogue of prayers, noises, characters and stories, Gemaal op Zuid proudly presents Al Falak Al Majdoub [The Entranced Orbit] as the first chapter of the exhibition series Spiritual Disobedience. Rooted in Amazigh geography and the Maghreb as a site of participation in the World, and guided by the words and absence of 16th-century Sufi and social reformist Sidi Abderhman El Majdoub, we begin our journey.
The work unfolds as a tripartite gesture: a visual production (Wall Painting), a sound installation (Electrical Wanderers), and a theory-fiction (Tales of the Electromancer). The constellation is a proto-Sufipunk tale, envisioning a time and space where technology and worldbuilding emerge from Quranic theurgy, Sufi-plural-cosmologies, and practices of reparation [Islah], reenchantment [Tazkiyah], and everyday blessing [Baraka].
At its core, Al Falak Al Majdoub is a space-fiction exploring the theology of electricity, framing Modernity itself as a theology of electricity, where the magic realm is reified into an economic and capitalist infrastructure of power. The work travels the digital barzakh [liminal realm], where cyber-utopias and colonial infrastructures collide. Al Falak Al Majdoub carves a parallel space of survival for us to inhabit: a virtual Andalus where disenchanted worlds are reenchanted. It asks: how to occupy digital realms without fracturing the Self?
Al Falak Al Majdoub: On wandering machines and song-maps of (no)return
[الفلك المجذوب: رسائل في المَكِينَات الهائِمة وخرائط الـاـعودة الناغِمة] by artist AZ OOR is part of the exhibition series Spritial Disobedience curated Yusser al Obaidi and Leana Boven for the Afrikaanderwijk Cooperatie at Gemaal op Zuid.
Graphic design by Yusser al Obaidi
[الفلك المجذوب: رسائل في المَكِينَات الهائِمة وخرائط الـاـعودة الناغِمة] by artist AZ OOR is part of the exhibition series Spritial Disobedience curated Yusser al Obaidi and Leana Boven for the Afrikaanderwijk Cooperatie at Gemaal op Zuid.
Graphic design by Yusser al Obaidi