For Immediate Release

July 2, 2014.

Super-Diviner: A psychic performance by RM Vaughan.

July 29, 30, 31, 2014 see precise times below.

VIDEOFAG

187 Augusta Avenue, Toronto

Please contact RM Vaughan or VIDEOFAG for further information.

VIDEOFAG: info@videofag.com

RM Vaughan: rm@rmvaughan.ca, 416-941-9380, vaughan.rm@gmail.com

VIDEOFAG proudly presents Super-Diviner, a new performance work by RM Vaughan.

Super-Diviner is a psychic experiment, a reconstitution of the art of divination.

Inspired by decades of personal research and a smattering of similar performances held at Mercer Union Toronto Nuit Blanche, The Power Plant, IFOA, Mind Pirates E.V. Berlin and Pride Toronto, among others, multi-media artist and author RM Vaughan will perform occult-based readings for visitors to VIDEOFAG by employing a new divinatory system based on the Tarot deck.

Docent: Keith Cole Toronto

Soundscape: Tomas Hemstad Berlin

Super-Diviner

A psychic performance by RM Vaughan

July 29, 2014

6:44pm to 8:44pm

July 30, 2014

6:43pm to 8:43pm

July 31, 2014

6:42 pm to 8:42pm

Admission is Free

Super-Diviner is an experiment.

Toronto multi-media artist RM Vaughan has been reading Tarot cards and participating in occult rituals since his early teens.

Now he wants to know: Is he actually psychic?

Super-Diviner seeks to both re-arrange and undermine traditional systems of divinatory revelation aka "fortune telling", by disrupting the format of the familiar, one-on-one/single-signifier-deck Tarot reading. And, by dislodging the worn tropes of the "Tarot reading", Vaughan hopes to discover whether or not he is a psychic conduit.

The performances will take place for exactly two hours before sunset, three days in a row.

Visitors to the gallery will be instructed to enter alone, and not to speak or otherwise communicate with Vaughan. Vaughan will not be visible and is not permitted to ask questions of the visitor. All facial cues, verbal cues, and other non-verbal cognitive transactions between "Reader" and "Receiver" will thus be made opaque to both parties.

The visitor will select three cards from a pile of assorted divinatory decks, divinatory cards both well-known and obscure. The visitor will not be able to see the horde of cards and will use his/her own intuition in choosing them from an opaque bowl.

By breaking up multiple divinatory decks and throwing them into a common and occluded lot, Vaughan seeks to negate the innate, hierarchical systems present in each deck as well as the act of "card shuffling" and how it determines the Receiver's psychic "readiness" and receptivity -- and, overall, to create a far more random selection of potential divinatory prompts for both the visitor and the reader.

Once selected, the visitor's cards will be delivered to Vaughan via a simple mechanical exchange, an obscured sliding door, and Vaughan will pronounce his reading of the cards to the visitor from behind a veiled space.

The end of the reading is signalled by Vaughan's returning of the cards, via the sliding door, to the visitor, who then must leave. The visitor takes away the given reading and decides for her/himself if Vaughan possesses psychic abilities, or does not. The visitor is free to relay their discoveries to the docent, or not.

Super-Diviner is the first instalment of Entreat, a three-part "physic investigation" project involving performance and the creation of divinatory objects. Parts two and three will manifest over the coming 12 months, in various locations.

About the artist:

RM Vaughan is a Toronto-based artist and writer. He is the author of 9 books and hundreds of articles on culture. His collaborative video works play in festivals around the world. Please visit www.rmvaughan.ca