In Constant Repetition
By Elena Dias-Jayasinha
Cleanse, tone, moisturise, repeat.
Brew, pour, drink, repeat.
Lather, massage, rinse, repeat.
Bathe, meditate, sleep, repeat.
Routines control our everyday lives, whether it be buying a coffee in the morning, driving the same route to work, or having a glass of wine with dinner. In 2013, American author Mason Currey penned Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, describing the routines of 161 artists. From novelists to painters, philosophers to scientists, Currey examined some of the world’s most inspiring minds, studying the ways in which personalised routines induced productivity and creativity. For Francis Bacon, his daily routine involved waking up at the first light of day, working until around noon, then carousing into the night. Simone de Beauvoir, on the other hand, had a more structured routine. She would have a cup of tea, work from ten to one, see friends, then continue working from five to nine. As creatures of habit, we can achieve almost anything by harnessing the power of routine. Somewhere along the line though, our routines can transform into rituals, with our mind switching off cruise control and beginning to focus on the intentions behind our actions.
Routines and rituals are an ongoing source of inspiration for artists. During the Renaissance, witchcraft and ritual practices were fed upon by artists such as Albrecht Dürer and Hans Baldung Grien. Their depictions of crones huddled around a boiling cauldron, or hags casting spells on naïve passersby, became key informants of witches’ ceremonies. Witchcraft and ritual practices are still of interest to artists today. In her photographic series Luna (2020) and video Esbat (2020), Trinity Koch draws on Wiccan celebrations of the lunar phase cycle, known as Esbats. Esbats are commonly associated with the Great Goddess, a deity archetype who symbolises the three stages of the female lifecycle; the Maiden, the Mother and the Crone. Through her personalised ritual worship of the Great Goddess, Koch investigates the spiritual relationship between the female body and the natural world.
In the 1970s, the development of performance art gave way to a new type of ritual. Artists, such as Mona Hatoum and Joseph Beuys, began creating and employing their own personal mythologies to explore issues related to identity and wider society. A similar kind of self-reflexivity can be found in Nicholas Tossmann’s Mindmap Artwork (2020), in which Tossmann deconstructs his own practice. In discerning the building blocks of his practice, Tossmann objectifies his own behaviour to explore what it means to be a contemporary artist, and what habits inform that being.
These days, rituals have become tied to technology. From checking social media before dozing off, to hunting Pokémon with friends every weekend, these are new rituals we have developed and begun to practice, year in and year out. As cyclical behavioural patterns, rituals such as these hint at the infinite nature of time, a notion explored by Isabella Catenaro in esc (2020). Esc compels viewers to play two highly addictive digital games for hours upon hours. Similarly, Zara Rose Dudley’s Quiz (2020) sucks viewers into a quiz in which they could live forever, continuously circling back to where they started. Both works hint at the endless temporality in which we live.
Bringing together Concrete Circle co-founders Isabella Catenaro, Trinity Koch, Zara Rose Dudley and Nicholas Tossmann, Ether encourages us to reflect on the rituals and routines that govern our own lives, especially in this year when our everyday lives have been flipped upside down.