On Friday October 25th, as part of the Tide of Ghosts: Esotericism Beyond Fact and Fiction conference at the University of Copenhagen, John Cussans (Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at UoW) and Roberto N. Peyre made a large-scale performative floor drawing Veve X: Escape Vessel for Wayland the Smith at the extreme music venue Mayhem in Copenhagen. The drawing, made in rock salt, combined designs for a sextant created by the 16th century alchemist and astronomer Tycho Brahe; elements from the Nordic legend of Wayland the Smith; and was a homage to the Old Mole, the ghost of Hamlet’s father that later became a personification of the spirit and revolution in the philosophies of Hegel and Marx and the source of Jacques Derrida’s concept of ‘hauntology’. The performance was accompanied by a live performance by the Swedish musician Jean-Louis Huhta.
