"Nasca, on Perspectives" is the second part of a trilogy on archaic cultures that have created outstanding cultural achievements in desert regions, but without leaving information enabling later eras to read them. These cultures placed signs that are so confusing to posterity that their achievements can only be incipiently explained by science or solely hypothetically. They blossomed into high cultures just as quickly as they subsequently vanished, leaving unique art works and cultural edifices that were hardly in relation to the fertility and natural riches of their respective regions. By our parameters, these works appear incomprehensible, meaningless, enigmatic – not of this world, for which reason they have repeatedly evoked "extraterrestrial" explanations (Däniken & Co).<

I have reflected on these cultures with complex themes such as disappearance (Part 1) and perspectives (Part 2).

Part 1 deals with the society of the Hisatsinom in the US southwest. The rapid downfall, dated around 1350, of this highly developed Native American culture in the Four Corners region (Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico) is ideally suited for reflection on disappearance in the here and now: through media synchronization, standardized rituals as "blessing" for a consumer society; but also being imprisoned in musical patterns. The media opera "Hisatsinom, on Disappearance" premiered in 2001 at the Festival 4020 in Linz.

In the second part of the trilogy I deal with the culture of the Nasca (200 BC – 600 AD) in southern Peru. The Nasca etched over-sized drawings of animals (geoglyphs), kilometer-long lines and numerous gigantic trapezoid and triangular planes into the chalky soil covered by a layer of rubble. There are more than twenty scientific theories and even more speculations about this desert culture that, as it appears, etched images for the gods, "the world's biggest astronomy book" (Prof. Paul Kossok), or perhaps simply markers for subterranean waterflows into the ground. Or were the Nasca maybe even bird-people, who saw their habitat from the perspective of the condor?

The fact is that these gigantic, artistically skilled drawings are barely recognizable from the ground and only reveal themselves to the eye of the beholder from the air. So why were they made, when they would have to remain – from a human scale! - hidden from the perspective of that time?!

The delicate lines and figures of the Nasca, which have been preserved up to the present through the interplay of the specific soil, the lack of wind and the extreme dryness in southern Peru, have been placed under the protection of the UNESCO since 1995.

Perspectives is thus the theme and the framework of the piece "Nasca, on Perspectives", projected for winter 2005 as a multimedia performance. Similarly to the conceptional approach for "Hisatsinom, on Disappearance", here I start from the Nasca Lines to pursue several directions. The perspectivally "impossible" objects and drawings of M. C. Escher (1898 – 1972), for instance, or works by the Italian sculptor and architect Filippo Brunelleschi (1377 – 1446), who was responsible for the dome of the cathedral Santa Maria del Fiore and numerous other important buildings in his home city of Florence and is considered a pioneer of humanist architecture and the discoverer of the mathematically constructible perspective, will also flow into the work.

The implementation of "Nasca, on Perspectives" will take place in a multimedia and spatially encompassing installation with a concert; Max/MSP/Jitter & Blender technique are used for the dynamic, three-dimensional image manipulation. Several performances are planned for the period of winter 2006 to fall 2006. The premiere will be in February (3^rd - 5^th) at the O.K Center for Contemporary Art in Linz. One week later “Nasca, on Perspectives” will have its premiere in the latin world at La Casa Encendida, Madrid during the Arco art fair. More performances in 2006: tba

Film and microphone recordings for the piece were made in summer 2005 in the original locations in Nasca & Palpa, Peru.

A multimedia DVD will be released parallel to the performances.

Part 3 of the trilogy will take me to Asia and is to be realized in 2009.

SPONSORS: Kulturamt der Stadt Linz, Kulturabteilung des Landes OÖ, BKA Abt. II/2, Eisserer & Dorninger GesbR

Thanks to: Gabriele Kling (photographer, driver, organisation), Dietrich Schulze & all members of Verein "Dr. Maria Reiche - Linien und Figuren der Nazca-Kultur in Peru" e.V. - Dresden, Jacobo Manopla Cimerman (Palpa), the whole team O.K Centrum Linz, the people from La Casa Encendida, ..... and all the people from Nasca & Palpa who guided me that well!

More info: http://www.htw-dresden.de/~nazca/
Wolfgang Dorninger is member of association
Verein "Dr. Maria Reiche - Linien und Figuren der Nazca-Kultur in Peru" e.V. - Dresden