TULPA
March 9, 2021

In what seems to be a search for a new language, Zhivago Duncan explores blurring the lines that have tied humans to the concepts of a linear understanding of history. Since the beginning of time, when humans started to develop consciousness, questions about how its existence came into being have flourished. To today’s knowledge, ancient science was not sufficiently developed to offer a reason for the appearance of the Universe, and myths were created as solutions to many of these questions. Li􀆫le did we know that humankind has come to ignore the information nature can offer to us: millennial wisdom from diverse beings –outside of the human realm– have been able to share information with us. From the scientific to the mystical, humans have taken different approaches to understanding the meaning of life.

Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Hebrew, Mayan myths, and even Western Modern Science theories –although separated by thousands of years and kilometers– have tales in common: we come from chaos, we were darkness until the light started the beginning of the order. This light is not only around us but within us. Through the evolution and development of tools and standardization of concepts, humankind has slowly parted away from this metaphysical sense, placing it at unapproachable places, high up in temples, hidden in a gold box, only accessible through deep meditation. Just to notice that the answer, even before science could confirm, was always right.

When the Big Bang took place the first form of consciousness woke up, it was the Universe. Billions of years afterward, humans took part in it. At some point, we all shared one conscience, and probably, with the development of new digital technologies and AI, we are all in the direction to be one again. Before language, it is believed humans could communicate telepathically.

The Pineal Gland –also known as the third eye– in humans was bigger, mankind was closer to nature, aware of its surroundings, mankind was capable of receiving knowledge from different biological sources; unlimited by language there was access to the geometry of things and to Universal communication.

During the decade of 2010, Richard Flash, a fictional lone survivor of the Apocalypse was proposed as an axis of Zhivago Duncan’s work. Flash, having lost his memory in the catastrophe that whipped humankind of Earth, roams around the planet collecting what he comprehended as relics, to create an understanding of the past civilizations. In the present year, after moving to Mexico City from Berlin, Duncan had a realization to ask himself the same questions as Dick Flash: what do all these connections mean?

The artworks in TULPA depict figures that juxtapose organic and machine-like imagery. A game is proposed, consciousness is the main character of this twisted timeline, where throughout history, a pendulum swings side to side from the metaphysical to the physical world. In the end, consciousness happens due to an electromagnetic reaction in our brains: we are no more than biological machines.

For the physical exercise of painting and molding ceramics, Zhivago Duncan uses batik and clay, two of the oldest known artistic techniques; creating his own Tulpa, an entity originally created from the artist mind and manifestation, that now has its own will, processed through the interpretation of the spectator. As observers, we also become Dick Flash, looking for answers in the vestiges left behind on this story. We question ourselves just to notice that when questions stop becoming scientific, they start becoming philosophical.

Mercedes Gómez Gónzalez
California 2021