The Society of Temporal Investigations

Description:

The Society of Temporal Investigations was a solo exhibition by Keith Langergraber that examined fan culture as a participatory form. Through video, sculpture, drawing, and ephemera, the exhibition explored the overlap between real and imagined space in science-fiction media, primarily focusing on the television show Battlestar Galactica. The narrative of Battlestar follows a fleet of starships on an epic quest through galaxies, dimensions, and time. Articulated through original drawings and models based on the television show, Langraber equates this search with the common fan practice of transposing fictional locales over real geographic sites. A cluster of ephemera including found zines and drawings focusing on resistance, environmental degradation, and corporate and government domination were displayed across the gallery walls to represent themes that run through the sci-fi genre. 

A central motif present throughout The Society of Temporal Investigations was the form of the spiral. While the symbol holds special significance in science fiction, it also connects Langergraber to another important influence on his artistic practice: the work of Robert Smithson. In his essay “The Shape of the Future and Memory” (1966), Smithson explores connections between art and time travel—themes that later informed his seminal earthwork Spiral Jetty (1970). Projected in a screening room at the rear of the gallery, Langergraber’s film The Theatre of the Exploding Sun (2009) further exploits this relationship between fandom and Spiral Jetty as it follows the artist’s alter ego Eton Corrasable on a quest through space and time.  

By equating Battlestar Galactica, Spiral Jetty, fan fiction, model building, and mapping, Langergraber complicated assumptions about the fan across disciplines. While obsession, influence, reverence, and re-creation are all accepted norms within the art world and other critical forms of academic discourse, the fan is lampooned for their manner of homage. New theories of fandom, like those articulated in The Society of Temporal Investigations, explored a range of possibilities for consumption, production, criticality, and play.

Curated by Caitlin Jones.