Appearance
Arachne’s appearance is a striking amalgamation of plant, human, and spider elements. Her face and body retain a human likeness, yet her features are distinctly otherworldly. Her eyes, enhanced by dramatic eyelashes, adorned with gold, green, and black eyeshadow, her eyes possess a captivating allure. Notably, her mouth opens sideways, creating a deep split or cleft from nose to chin, adding to the surreal nature of her visage.
The sides of her face bear intricate patterns of gold and green lines, resembling leaf veins and mirroring the human lymphatic system’s arrangement. Varied shades of green are employed to impart depth and dimension to these veins. Her skin, a rich brown hue adorned with gold freckles, adds to her mystique.
Her hair, cascading in long golden dreadlocks, is intricately styled into a voluminous bun atop her head, adorned with six eyes encircling it. This juxtaposition of beauty and terror is further accentuated by her attire: Victorian lace combined with a shiny, carapace-like black corset and a green bustle skirt. Arachne embodies a mesmerising yet unsettling presence, captivating observers with her enchanting beauty and eerie allure.
The Performance
Arachne-Damoah stands looking at the tesseract like arrangement of (her) artworks on the wall. The soundscape starts. Sinister sounds start to play in the background. Like creatures crawling in space from different directions.
Arachne will interact with her artworks on display, which weave together images of her own ancestry, (Ghanaians dating back to the mid-1800s), with British figures from the Victorian era, including Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, and Baron Robert Napier. Incorporating the concept of artworks containing slices of (higher-dimensional) hyperobjects into the performance, as well as the revaluation of existing narratives, provides a rich tapestry for exploring complex ideas and speculative visions.
In her role as griot, Arachne-Damoah becomes a conduit for weaving together these diverse narratives and concepts, revaluing tales from “Flatland,” “Hamlet,” “The Tempest,” and the lesser-known plays of Frantz Fanon through a soundscape. She invites the audience to journey through a multidimensional soundscape/landscape/mindscape where sacred geometrical symbols like Metatron’s Cube and the Tree of Life intermingle with slices of hyperobjects. The artwork itself, arranged in a flattened-out tesseract, serves as a tangible representation of these intersecting dimensions, containing within it glimpses of past, present, and future realities.
Through her static, audio-visual performance, Arachne-Damoah offers a glimpse into a future where art becomes a transformative force, capable of piercing the veil called the phenomenal world in order to access the noumenal other world beyond it and revealing new possibilities for collective existence.
By revaluing existing narratives and harnessing the power of imagination, Arachne beckons the audience to embark on a journey of exploration and reimagining a journey that holds the promise of a more interconnected, empathetic, and sustainable future for all beings on Earth.
Adelaide Damoah
Adelaide Damoah 2023
