20
September 2001
Damanhur: The Temple of Humankind
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This temple to the philosophy of humankind, the spirit of humankind, and the evolution of humankind was built in secret by hand until someone from inside decided to blackmail them. They didn't have the money, or wouldn't pay, and so this person told the government, who came in with bulldozers and said let them in or they'd start destroying it right away. "They did not know where it was," Sardine told me, "but they knew it was in this hill, so they threatened to just start bulldozing. We had to give in." They let the government inside and immediately they told them they couldn't continue. So Damanhur alerted the newspapers, the television, and the Italian arts community came to action. How could Italy, a country that celebrated art, halt the construction of the eighth wonder of the world? Can one build a temple without religon, without dogma? They are trying. This is not only a temple, but a control center of earth built at the confluence of four synchronic lines, built by people who put art, technology, and ecology on equal levels, and who are using every available method to stretch their minds and discover more about humankind, nature, art, technology, alien life, and the cosmos, the obvious and the hidden. Not only that, but finding ways to communicate, a la the singing ficus tree. And healing; transmitting wishes of peace to troubled spots in the world via the selfic machine they've built of copper and crystals in the hall of spheres. There are no closed minds here. There is an emphasis on change, on discovery, and on positivity in thought and action. The most impressive images I saw painted were in the Hall of Earth, where there is depicted an image of a beautiful woman "at the height of her femininity, at pregnancy" said Anemone. The woman is depicted in a step of a temple dance, her hands separating two worlds, one of destruction and one of construction. Under her a war rages, people dressed colorfully, laughing and smiling, fighting an army of gray people who,when they came in contact with the people in color, took on their image, depicting that we are often fighting ourselves. This mural is at least 30 feet high. On another wall the cosmos is depicted as a man with swirling galaxies in his hair letting precious jewels, representing humans, stream through his hands into a challis. Between them is an androygen, who in normal light is a man and in ultraviolet light is a woman. They play not only with art but with technology, using light and machines to convey meaning. One after another, the halls astound. The passageways to the halls are narrow, and painted with images that give a glue as to the hall you are headed towards. There is lots of cleverness: a mural along the top of a wall depicts a group of children laughing at us. One child, though, gives a clue. A hidden doorway is directly under him, we push and it opens into a passageway. In another hall Anemone flips a switch and a portion of the floor separates into half a dozen rectangles that scale down into a stairway to a passage below. "Art and Technology," she laughs. I like the light play, the playing with mechanical objects, with spheres and crystals, copper wire and magnets. There is something like 20 tons of copper wire lain in the walls and ceilings of the temple, making it the largest selfic device ever. |