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Approximately thirteen moons ago, I asked myself: Is it possible to live under a lunar calendar?
What would such a life reveal? What happens when you measure life in months instead of years? How would you interface with the databases that underlie digitized capitalism? Where to begin?
One begins with one’s own body, of course. Has science fiction taught us nothing?
—Badly Licked Bear, in the introduction to Manual 19
Manual 19 (Many Moons) looks up to the skies to consider astronomy and space travel and ponder broader, more ancient associations, including the night in all its inky glory; tides, time, and calendars; the feminine; reflections and mirrors; love and enduring companionship; and lunacy, strangeness, and magic.
From the Files
Dominic Molon contemplates the alien artifice of Meredyth Sparks’s Space Oddity
Kate Irvin navigates the shimmering protection of Tavares Strachan’s B.A.S.E.C. Flight Jacket
Double Takes
Karen ní Mheallaigh and Katy Schimert shine a little light on a small Roman lamp
John Kenny and Evelyn Lincoln glean new meanings from a 1617 German farming calendar
Margaret Masselli and Srinivas Reddy illuminate an early 18th-century Indian miniature scene of women in a garden
Jack Madden and Jennifer L. Roberts map Nancy Graves’s Plate VI Maskeyne Da Region of the Moon
Artist on Art
Aymar Ccopacatty reflects on Olga de Amaral’s Cesta Lunar 24 (Moon Basket)
Portfolio
Mooning over the RISD Museum collection
Object Lessons
Sarah Mirseyedi eyes symbolism and meaning in the work of Odilon Redon
Maria Morris Hambourg looks to Julia Margaret Cameron’s portrait of astronomer John Herschel
How To
See things differently, using tarot cards made by the RISD Art Circle Teens
Manual 19: Many Moons is accompanied by a special Spotify playlist. Access Moon Songs here.
To purchase issues or subscribe to Manual, visit here. To check out a digital preview click here.
The RISD Museum is supported by a grant from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, through an appropriation by the Rhode Island General Assembly and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and with the generous partnership of the Rhode Island School of Design, its Board of Trustees, and Museum Governors. Additional generous support for this issue of Manual is provided by the RISD Museum Associates and Sotheby’s.
