Excavating the Templar Treasure:
Re/Searching the Hieros Gamos in Artistic & Critical Practice
by
Lisa Paul Streitfeld
The disclosure of the elusive Templar Treasure was the unexpected outcome of an entangled relationship between “re-search” and artistic/critical practice of the hieros gamos. There is much to know about how “The Sacred Marriage Rites” transmitted via unearthed cunneiform tablets were honored in ancient Mesopotamia. Yet full Heideggerian disclosure of Being required a unity of inner exploration and outer research in a New Media practice exploding the boundaries between art, literature, criticism and curation. This presentation demonstrates the alchemical process by which this icon publically entered the body of the artist in January 2008 to guide research through the duration of the eight-year Venus cycle to the Templar Treasure in 2015. Along the way, the 2012 phenomenology of the “eternal return” of the 1882 Venus Transit of the Sun disclosed the archaeology of Nietzsche’s hieros gamos rites with Salome birthing the Ubermensch as the divine marriage of heaven and earth. The presentation concludes with a short interactive performance. Performance Link: http://thealchemyoflove.blogspot.hr
HERMENEUTICS OF NEW MODERNISM 
