Long Long Game Game

At the age of 16 Albert Einstein famously imagined what it would be like to travel on the front end of a light beam. Despite the fixed speed of light of 299,792,458 meters per second, he discovered that our perception of time is relative depending on our unique position in space. While illustrating the science of Einstein’s theory is extracurricular for our purposes, it serves as a useful picture for entering Elysia Mann’s current exhibition Long Long Game Game at The Wilson Gallery at Georgetown College. Through a combination of various materials, images, text, macro, and micro scales, Mann considers the biggest questions of life and death through the lens of play. In this regard, play mustn’t be brushed off as mere frivolity, but rather celebrated as a pillar of imaginative thinking, especially when considering the creative capacity of thinkers such as Einstein.

In her collection of screen-prints, weavings, poetry, and monumental installation, Mann prompts us to contemplate the uncertainty of time, and consequently our (mis)perceptions of our bodily and spiritual mortality. She does so by making visible both coherent forms and their respective building blocks be it pixelated color, gridded networks, or the warp and weft of woven textiles. Future Sand for example depicts two monumental seashells, unreadable as such because of Mann’s decision to significantly crop the images transforming them into surreal, cartoonish landscapes. When nearer to the work, the picture dissolves into a radiant tessellation of color swatches and unintelligible symbolic code. At once, I am made aware of both the smaller and larger picture, reminiscent of microscopic or telescopic imagery. Yet, it is by way of my own eyes and body… read more