Paul McMahon, artist

MARCEL DUCHAMP IS ALIVE AND WELL; AND MAKING CROP CIRCLES In 1926 Marcel Duchamp made his circular ‘rotoreliefs.’ They were designed to be rotated on a phonograph turntable like a vinyl LP. In the early 70’s a friend was working at Time-Life Books, and he gave me the Marcel Duchamp book they published. It reproduced the roto-reliefs in their original size. I cut them out and ‘played’ them on my turntable, which enhanced the 3D illusion. I’m a huge fan of Duchamp, the iconoclast’s iconoclast and the father of Conceptual Art. Duchamp was the first to do so many things, e.g.; to select an everyday object and call it art, to create a female alter-ego, to have a picture shaved on his scalp, and in a gesture of unflinching contrariness, to show the rotoreliefs not in an art gallery but in a sort of science expo, where businesses and people displayed their new inventions. In an essay in Artforum many years ago, Jack Burnham linked his work with the hermetic Jewish mysticism of the Kabbalah. Whatever the case, it is clear that Duchamp was the type of thinker who transcended all convention. As one who has been deeply curious about Native American prophecy and New Age ideas for a number of years I read Daniel Pinchbeck’s 2012 with great interest. This is a fascinating survey of unexplained phenomena, shamanism, ancient wisdom and prophecy by a writer whose credibility in the literary world has brought 2012 a much wider readership than any previous ‘New Age’ book. It includes a lengthy segment about crop circles, a subject which I had not looked into. The more I read about them the more riveted I became. As a ‘hands on’ seeker of truth I’ve explored clairvoyance and intuition, read ‘channeled’ books, met psychics, shamans and witnessed enough ‘unexplained’ phenomena that I have no doubt of the ‘reality’ of such things. One of the things I found is that as one begins to develop one’s intuition there is confusion about which impressions are being ‘received’ clairvoyantly and which are only being imagined; in other words subjective and objective can’t be clearly delineated. In 2012, Pinchbeck talks about the prevalence of this phenomenon in particular reference to crop circles. It seems that when a person begins to seriously investigate them a new crop circle will often appear which has special, even seemingly purely personal significance for that person. It’s as if the crop circle makers want to assure us that they are aware of our interest in them and want to encourage that interest by showing us they have access to our inner thought process in a way that only ‘God’ or something like God could. So when I discovered amazing similarities between crop circles and Duchamp’s rotoreliefs it got my attention. There are several circles which closely resemble rotoreliefs. It occurred to me that if we accept the idea that death is not necessarily the end of one’s consciousness then it could be possible that Duchamp lives on in some form after his death as a crop circle designer. After all, ghosts are widely thought to be real and to be people who have died but have not accepted certain conditions of death and insist on ‘hanging around’ because of excessive attachment to place or person. But what about highly advanced beings who die? Can’t they hang around too? Don’t Christians believe that Jesus is literally present (physically or not) in this material reality? In Eastern religions a holy person may ascend to a higher level of existence after death. In Hinduism it is said that certain great sages have taken up residence in subtler planes of consciousness which have beneficial ‘causal’ (trickle down?) effects on the denser astral and material planes. In other words they become God-like, participating in the creation of the day to day appearance of reality. In Tibetan Buddhism, great holy figures attain the level of bodhisattva, where they reincarnate time and again to help their fellow humans attain enlightenment. Called tulkus, these reincarnated masters include H.H. the Dalai Lama (now in his 16th incarnation), H.H. the Karmapa (17th) and many others who have become skillful at navigating the Bardo (the afterlife) to attain their next birth on earth as the same being. They are said to vow to reincarnate until all humans attain enlightenment. Specific afterlife functions for departed souls may also be found in Santeria (Voodoo) where departed ancestors, when prayed to may ascend to the level of demi-Gods who may be summoned during ceremony. In some indigenous traditions great souls are merged with the elements, both before and after death, becoming part of the sun or rain, or/and appearing in animal form. Why shouldn’t a great soul of contemporary art ascend to such a level of consciousness that he is making crop circles, perhaps sending important messages to me and/or humanity? Or alternately, Duchamp may have clairvoyantly envisioned shapes of things to come. He may have seen or somehow known the ways of the higher vibrational beings who have arrived so dramatically in the Halycon Fields of Avalon in recent decades. Personally, I have concluded that Duchamp is ‘alive’ and well and making crop circles and I have also decided that I will collaborate with him by publicizing this fact. It is to this end that I’ve scheduled a show of his crop circles and any other afterlife works which may appear between now and then. The show is planned to open on Earth Day; April 22, 2012, at the new Project Inc. at the Woodstock Mothership in Woodstock, NY. This date allows time for the work to be researched and assembled and for other works to surface. It is also on Earth Day, to emphasize the idea that the crop circles are messages from higher states of consciousness intended to shepherd us through the changes necessary to maintain a healthy balance with Mother Earth as our home. And of course, thanks largely to Pinchbeck's popularization of Jose Arguelles' theories about the Mayan calendar, 2012 is widely thought to be the year when the ‘world’ will ‘end.’ As I have thought about these things for the past few months I was always bothered by one little detail in Duchamp’s rotorelief. I was annoyed that the red sections had those lines on them. The crop circles didn’t have lines like that. At least that was what I thought until the other day, when I came across the last photograph in this slideshow, of a circle from 2001, with lines like Duchamp's 'Corolles' rotorelief (red and black). Mercy in Buckets, Marcel! These pictures are from two wonderful books: CROP CIRCLES by Steve and Karen Alexander and Freddy Silva’s SECRETS IN THE FIELDS. If you want to know more about these authors and crop circles here are a couple of urls to get you started: www.swirlednews.com and www.circlemakers.org/freddy.html Duchamp's rotoreliefs may be seen and downloaded at: www.aqualoop.com/aqua_sound/delia/Duchamp.html