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On Golden Lane (an attempt at achieving Chrysopoeia) (ongoing project)

2020-

On Golden Lane (an attempt at achieving Chrysopoeia) is a performative action carried out on Golden Lane Street (Zlatá ulička), located near the Prague castle. The figure goes to this street and tries to fly a rainbow kite in the shape of a parachute into the air in the hope that a phenomenon will occur. It is a place steeped in mysteries and myths. Legend has it that the King's alchemists worked and experimented on that street. In fact, no alchemists resided in that place, but it was from the myth that the idea for performative action was enhanced. Chrysopoeia in alchemy, is a term that means the transmutation into gold (of metals or objects) from the Greek khrusos = gold, and poiein = to make. The term symbolically indicates the creation of the philosopher's stone, the conclusion of the “Great Work”. A legend also says that Leprechaun's gold hiding place is at the end of the rainbow. It is from these reasons combined with the Golden Lane myth that the narrative action is born. The figure enters the street and with the rainbow kite in the shape of a parachute - in a physical assimilation to the natural, optical and meteorological phenomenon - tries to raise it in the air so that one tries to achieve the chrysopoeia, the end of the rainbow. Was the action successful? Was gold created and obtained in Golden Lane? A new myth is inserted in daily life, in an effabulation of the performative action. Only rumors remain of what really happened in that place, in that street where the absurd and the illogical live.

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On Golden Lane (an attempt at achieving chrysopoeia) - Photographic documentation of the performative act

Golden Lane Street, Prague, Czech Republic, January 14, 2020

Duration: 25 minutes

Props: Rainbow kite, parachute format

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Photographic documentation

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Video frames (16:9, 2'41'', colour, without sound, loop)

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