Tremulations is a multi-disciplinary project conceived by Daniel Birnbaum and Jacqui Davies, comprising of exhibitions, publications and events worldwide. Derived from "The Nine Rules of Tremulation", as set out by Emmanuel Swedenborg in his publication On Tremulation (1719) Tremulations stitches together selected artworks from the 20th and 21st Century, films, artefacts, books as well as new works of art, film and VR. Tremulations comes about through the unique collaboration of Birnbaum, Davies and the Swedish Academy’s Nobel Committee for Literature.
THE NINE RULES OF TREMULATION
THE FIRST RULE OF TREMULATION
ANYTHING OF A FIRM AND HARD NATURE, SUCH AS WOOD, STONE, ROCK, METAL, ETC., IS SUBJECTED TO GREAT TREMULATIONS EVEN BY A SLIGHT TOUCH.
THE SECOND RULE
AN EXPANDED MEMBRANE IS THE BEST MEDIUM OF TREMULATION.
THE THIRD RULE
NEXT TO MEMBRANES, THE BEST MEDIA OF TREMULATION ARE SUCH BODIES AS ARE HARD AND ELASTIC; SOFTER BODIES, ARE LESS SUITABLE.
THE FOURTH RULE
THE TREMULATION OF A STRING WILL CAUSE A SYNTHETIC VIBRATION IN ANOTHER STRING ; A MEMBRANE SIMILARLY AFFECTS ANOTHER MEMBRANE ; THAT IS, IF BOTH ARE TUNED IN THE SAME KEY.
THE FIFTH RULE
TREMULATIONS IN THE AIR MAKE RINGS AND CIRCLES, AND ARE HEARD ON ALL SIDES ROUND THE CENTRE OF THE MOTION; THAT IS, IF THE WHOLE MASS IS NOT BEING MOVED.
THE SIXTH RULE
THE HEAVIER THE ATMOSPHERE, THE SLOWER IS THE TREMULATION, BUT THE LIGHTER THE AIR, THE SWIFTER IS THE MOTION.
THE SEVENTH RULE
ONE TREMULATION DOES NOT INTERFERE WITH ANOTHER, SIMULTANEOUS ONE.
THE EIGHTH RULE
IN ALL TREMULATIONS THE ANGLE OF REFLECTION IS EQUAL TO THE ANGLE OF INCIDENCE.
THE NINTH RULE
THERE ARE MILLIONS OF VARIATIONS.
SWEDENBORG HOUSE, LONDON
3 April - 29 June 2023
Tremulations, an exhibition in three chapters at London’s Swedenborg House, opens with the world premiere of Mark Leckey’s first Virtual Reality work: The Bridge.
Emanuel Swedenborg’s visionary universe is one of reflections and correspondences. Sacred scripture, he claimed, is a mirror in which we see God. At her request, he once introduced a young girl to an angel: leading her to a corner of his study, he drew back a curtain to reveal a mirror and the girl’s own face. Swedenborg, the author of On Tremulations (1719), envisioned a cosmos in which everything, including seemingly solid objects, vibrates. “In tremulations there are a millions of variations”, according to the ninth and final rule of his doctrine.
The exhibition Tremulations, curated by Jacqui Davies and Daniel Birnbaum, presents objects from the rich archives of the Swedenborg House as well as writings and works of art by, among others, Marcel Duchamp, Yayoi Kusama, Meret Oppenheim, Emanuel Swedenborg and Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Structured according to Swedenborg’s Nine Rules of Tremulation, the exhibition will be presented in three chapters manifested in physical, temporal and virtual space at Swedenborg House. Each chapter will include a Virtual Reality work produced by Acute Art: The Bridge by Mark Leckey (April), Hilma af Klint: The Temple (May) and It will End in Stars by Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg (June) as well as 3 “corresponding” works of projection, The first will be Phantoms of Nabua by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, the second, My Blood Self: Civilisations 1 by Grace Ndiritu, the third, Testament A: MF FKA K-P X KE RIP by Tony Cokes.
Thanks to Acute Art, Primitive Film, Charles Asprey, Cabinet Gallery, KateMacGarry Gallery and Greene Naftali Gallery.
SELECTED PRESS
NO NAME, PARIS
14 October 2024 - 15 January 2025
This exhibition, which includes works by sixteen artists, uses his “Nine Rules of Tremulation” as a schema to explore forms of dissemination and coagulation. Reflections, shadows, echoes, and replicas are important themes in the show, as are methods of transmissions and forms of vibration and trembling. An emphasis on the multisensory agency of things–artworks as well as technical artefact–creates spaces of reflection and ambience that rid our thinking of the obsession with the historically overemphasized relationship between a perceiving subject and a known object. Other, equally productive relaionships between agents–synthetic or organic can emerge.
This exhibition at No Name forms part of the ongoing project Tremulations, initiated by Daniel Birnbaum & Jacqui Davies at the Swedenborg House in London last year. The project involves cinematic and literary events in many cities produced in collaboration with members of the Swedish Academy’s Nobel Committee.
ARTISTS
Karla Black, Tony Cokes, Thea Djordjadze, Trisha Donnell, Marcel Duchamp, Cerith Wyn Evans, Spencer Finch, Shilpa Gupta, Veronika Hapchenko, Anne Imhof, Emily Kraus, Alicja Kwade, Nam June Paik, Iris Touliatou, Nobuko Tsuchiya, Anicka Yi
ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS, STOCKHOLM
26 November 2024 - 12 February 2025
This exhibition, which includes works by sixteen artists, uses his “Nine Rules of Tremulation” as a schema to explore forms of dissemination and coagulation. Reflections, shadows, echoes, and replicas are important themes in the show, as are methods of transmissions and forms of vibration and trembling. An emphasis on the multisensory agency of things–artworks as well as technical artefact–creates spaces of reflection and ambience that rid our thinking of the obsession with the historically overemphasized relationship between a perceiving subject and a known object. Other, equally productive relaionships between agents–synthetic or organic can emerge.
This exhibition at No Name forms part of the ongoing project Tremulations, initiated by Daniel Birnbaum & Jacqui Davies at the Swedenborg House in London last year. The project involves cinematic and literary events in many cities produced in collaboration with members of the Swedish Academy’s Nobel Committee.
VIDEO WORKS by Jacqui Davies
Signals
Techno Tesla
The Man with the Flower in His Mouth
Sound Shattering Glass
Vortex
Mirror and Water
Murmuration
Hall of Mirrors
Stockholm Dreaming of London
LITERARY EXCERPTS
Etel Adnan, The Spring Flowers Own, 1990
Charles Baudelaire, Correspondances, 1857
Jorge Luis Borges, Selected Poems 1923–1967
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43), 1850
Olga Tokarczuk, Prowadź swój pług przez kości umarłych, 2009
August Strindberg, Inferno, 1897
Selma Lagerlöf, Brev, 1890–1899
鈴木 大拙 貞太郎 (Suzuki Daisetsu Teitaro)
Swedenborg: Buddha of the North, 1996
William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 1793
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
Faust. Der Tragödie zweiter Teil, 1832.
5. Akt, "Bergschluchten, Chorus Mysticus"
A.S. Byatt, Angels and Insects, 1993
Gerard de Nerval, Aurélia, 1855
W. B. Yeats, Swedenborg, Mediums and the Desolate Places, 1914
H. D. (Hilda Doolittle), Vale Ave, 1957
Gunnar Ekelöf, Färjesång, 1941, En Mölna-elegi, 1960
TREMULATIONS: LATIN AMERICA
November 2025
