Master Class THE MIRROR OF MAGIC: Animating Artforms through Ritual and Visionary Practice by Emily Hunt

“The Mirror of Magic: Animating Artforms through Ritual and Visionary Practice is a five-day intensive program that bridges academic research on esoteric traditions in art with hands-on, practical workshops designed to enhance technical skills for contemporary art practice. Drawing inspiration from surrealist artist Kurt Seligmann’s seminal book, The Mirror of Magic, this course focuses on magick, symbolism, and artistic creation, offering participants an opportunity to approach esoteric concepts through both theory and practice in a considered way.

Each day of the program is centered around a specific theme, introduced through a detailed visual lecture, and followed by an experimental material-based workshop. Participants will engage with historical and contemporary esoteric traditions, while acquiring new technical knowledge in various artistic mediums, including drypoint, miniature ceramics, marbling ceramics, simple puppetry, papier-mâché, collage/text, and maquette model making.

Building on the foundation laid by the first edition of Drawing Down the Moon, The Mirror of Magic expands the research and material explorations into new technical territories. Led by a practicing artist, participants will gain firsthand experience with materials and techniques that may be unfamiliar, enabling them to bring these experiments back to their own studios for further exploration. This course is a standalone experience, open to both new participants and those who attended the first masterclass.

In addition to the practical workshops, this edition of the masterclass offers a considered theoretical and historical background on art that engages with the history of Western Esotericism. Subjects covered include divinatory tablets, visionary architecture, the creation of poppets/puppets, the representation of witches in visual art, and the Cut-Up collage method.” (Text by courtesy of Emily Hunt)

Monday January 13, 2025
9:30 AM Reception at the BAI
Casting Magickal Ideograms, witches marks and divination tablets.

This five-day intensive program, The Mirror of Magic, invites participants to delve into the rich and complex world of esoteric art traditions, drawing inspiration from historical practices such as Hermeticism, ceremonial magic, and spiritualism. The course’s title is a nod to Kurt Seligmann’s influential book, and it serves as a springboard for an exploration of how mystical and symbolic languages have influenced artistic creation throughout history.

Inspiration is a word that has lost its powerful meaning in our contemporary world. It has been watered down and commodified, however the etymology of the word inspire means – ‘to influence, move, or guide as in speech and action through divine or supernatural agency or power’. Bringing this inspiration into form, through the hands of the artist, is the goal of the 5-day intensive course.

The course begins with an introduction by artist Emily Hunt, who will present her multifaceted practice spanning print, collage, painting, and ceramics. She will share insights into her research-driven approach, discussing how she transforms scholarly inquiry into tangible art forms. This sets the stage for participants to engage in a similar process, using academic research as a foundation for creative experimentation.

Building on themes introduced in the first edition of Drawing Down the Moon, beginning on the Monday, we will further investigate the development of personal symbolic languages. Participants will explore various esoteric traditions that use symbols, including rune symbols, witches’ marks found hidden in homes, Robert Graves’ Tree Alphabet, and the Theban alphabet. The course will also highlight the work of visionary and spiritualist artists such as Adolf Wölfli, Ethel Le Rossignol, the surrealist and automatic drawings of André Masson, and the work of self-taught Anna Zemánková.

The practical component of the course begins with automatic drawing exercises designed to help participants uncover and articulate their own personal symbology. These sketches will then serve as the basis for creating ceramic sculptures, utilising marbled ceramic techniques to produce an ideogram alphabet set. These miniature bisque ceramic sculptures will function as personal divination tablets.
After lunch, participants will complete their ceramic tablets, taking time to develop the work, then allowing them to dry for bisque firing on Thursday morning.

Tuesday January 14, 2025
The Glass Chain: visionary propositions, hypothetical architecture and the imagination.

To begin the day, a lecture will be presented on Visionary, Utopian and Expressionist architecture. The visual lecture will cover how architects propose impossibly beautiful and usually unconceived architecture as way of letting the imagination of architecture run wild.
The lecture will cover a range of architectural styles and movements, from the fantastical prints of Giovanni Battista Piranesi and the expressive designs of German expressionist architects, to the avant-garde innovations of the Archigram group and Antfarm and then following the line to the radical aesthetics of the Memphis group. The drawings and maquettes of Bruno Taut, Paul Gösch, Wenzel Hablik, Frederick Kiesler, Buckminster Fuller, Peter Cook, Paul Laffoley and the sculptures of Bernard Schultze.

The practical aspect to the lecture will begin with a demonstration of two separate maquette techniques, draped plaster and Papier-mâché. These creations will be further detailed and painted the following day.

The Chance, the Cut-up: Accidental narratives in text art

After lunch, while the maquettes are drying, we will discuss the history of the Cut-up Method. A visual lecture on examples of artists employing the cut-up technique will be discussed. The Cut-up is an aleatory narrative method wherein a written text is physically cut into fragments and reassembled to produce a new text. While its conceptual origins can be traced to the Dadaist movement of the 1920s, the technique gained prominence during the 1950s and early 1960s, most notably through the work of author William S. Burroughs and Brion Gysin.

The practical component of the class will incorporate second-hand books sourced from local flea markets in Berlin. Emily Hunt is also a passionate book collector, these books are deliberately sourced as special resources to use for this class alone.

Wednesday January 15, 2025
To begin the day, there will be demonstration on painting the maquettes, and the participants will add details to their sculptures.

Poppets and Puppets: Articulations of Analog Intelligence

Following lunch, the next module of the course will feature a visual lecture examining how both historical and contemporary artists have utilised puppets in their work. The discussion will begin with the Hermetic concept of the homunculus and extend to the earliest forms of automatons. The use of dolls and puppets within the context of art will be analyzed, focusing on the works of Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Jim Henson, Morton Bartlett, Saskia de Boer, Hans Bellmer, Asta Gröting, Étienne Bideau-Rey, Annette Messager, Robert Anton, Sally Smart, and Wael Shawky.

The lecture will also delve into the magical counterpart of the puppet: the poppet. Traditionally believed to possess the power to influence the mind of its creator and alter reality, the poppet or puppet emerges as a particularly potent tool—an autonomous entity seemingly ‘released’ from another realm to act on behalf of its creator. In the realm of folk magic and witchcraft, a poppet is a meticulously crafted figurine symbolising an individual, used to cast spells or provide magical assistance. Discoveries of these figurines within chimneys are well-documented. Construction materials vary, including carved roots, grains, fruits, paper, wax, potatoes, clay, branches, or cloth filled with herbs. The underlying principle is rooted in sympathetic magic, where manipulations on the effigy are believed to influence the corresponding individual.

We will begin will exploring found materials to create a puppet/poppet. Such materials as clay, fabric, organic materials such as seeds, branches and other industrial materials such as polystyrene and cardboard.

Maiden, Mother, Crone: The archetype of the Witch in the history of art

After lunch the lecture will turn to the archetype of the witch. Emily Hunt’s etchings involve research into the earliest depictions of witchcraft in print media (woodcuts, broadsheets, etchings, and engravings). These prints from the 16th to 18th century often portrayed the older woman as a symbol of horror, pestilence, and taboo sexual desire, as evident in the works of Albrecht Dürer, Hans Baldung Grien, and Jacques de Gheyn II. This serves as a starting point to delve into the archetype of the crone and the real women persecuted, either for being too powerful (owning land) or too poor (begging for money), or those who actually practiced the Craft. We will examine propaganda images, and question whether print culture influenced society’s perception of widows and older women living alone. The visual lecture will look to the impact of images on the societal psyche, particularly after the widespread distribution of prints depicting witches. These hyperbolic portrayals of the naked aging body and sensational images both aroused and incited fear in viewers during the 16th century and beyond. The lecture will draw connections between these historical stereotypes of witches in broadsheets and contemporary memes, emphasising the shared viral quality in spreading fear rapidly, evoking gut reactions and inciting violence. We will look to examples of artists that portray the witch in contemporary art, such as Leonora Carrington, Kiki Smith, Paula Rego and Ana Maria Pacheco.
The practical component of the course will focus on brass drypoint tablets. The technique of drypoint will be demonstrated and then the brass plague will be inked, although not printed. This is a counterpoint to printing, the elemental plaque as an artwork in itself.

Friday January 17, 2025
The Esoteric Celluloid: Occulted light in film & photography

The final lecture of the week will focus on esoteric and visionary photography and film, exploring how these mediums capture the ineffable in ways that painting or sculpture cannot. This session will highlight the unconventional practices of artists such as Steven Arnold, Maya Deren, Kenneth Anger, Kati Horna, Shannon Taggart, Harry Smith, and William Mortensen, alongside contemporary creators who use film and photography to engage with occult themes in today’s cultural landscape.

After morning tea, our day is devoted to documenting the work for posterity for a group digital exhibition. After the lecture, we will open the discussion to all participants to talk about the outcomes and successes of their artwork that was produced during the program. This will be a session of sharing the artworks made and taking stock of the body of work that each artist was produced over the week.