Physical medium Kai Muegge
Friday, December 6
Time: 8 pm
Admission: $5
Presented by: Shannon Taggart & Liminal Analytics** This talk originally premiered at the 2013 Congress of Curious Peoples, London and was revised for the Occult Humanities Conference at NYU
After learning the true details of her grandfather’s death through a medium, Shannon Taggart began photographing Spiritualism. Through images made from 2001-2013, this talk will examine the elusive substance of ectoplasm and its various expressions within Spiritualist ritual. The “New Age of Physical Mediumship” will be the main point of focus, comparing and contrasting the séance cabinet work and ectoplasmic manifestations of physical mediums Sharon Harvey, Gordon Garforth and Kai Muegge. A comparison between Shannon Taggart’s Spiritualism and Vodou projects will also be explored.
Shannon Taggart is a photographer and independent researcher based in Brooklyn, NY. Her work has been featured and exhibited internationally including the publications TIME, Newsweek and Reader’s Digest. She is an Observatory member whose programming focuses on the science, aesthetics and material culture of the miraculous. Currently, she is working on a book about Spiritualism and physical mediumship.