M HKA Ensembles

Galerie Transit, Leuven

25 October 1991 - 01 December 1991

[Her mouth was a flower of sorrow]

"Vengeful goddesses, Erinyes

As vengeful goddesses,  like furies and Gorgons, Erinyes are instruments for divine revenge following human wrongdoing. They always come in threes, as is also the case for the Celtic goddesses.

The Erinyes personify the conscience and sow terror and dread in the heart. They are the symbol of regret and guilt, of the self-destruction of the person who succumbs to the realization of having committed an unforgivable wrong.

When vengeful goddesses become Moirai, they are more specifically associated with “fate”. As guardians of the natural laws, they originally watched over the physical as well as the moral order of things. Anyone who violated any law at the expense of the Gods and humankind, would feel their punishment.

The evolution of their terrain corresponds to that of the conscience that first prohibits and prevents and later condemns and destroys.

Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone are the three Erinyes.

In light of the unstoppable, ever-growing presence of computers and the power that is granted to them, in academic circles, the question is being raised as to whether it would be desirable to create, after the model of the Principia Mathematica, a Principia Cybernetica. At the V.U.B. in Brussels, a group of researchers attempted to jointly develop a system of cybernetic philosophy, in relation to epistemology (1), metaphysics (2), and ethics (3), or the highest of all human values.

The abstract image that appears as a symbol is given the form of a figure in the midst of a social-societal universe. Complex. Fragmentary. Hence, my Erinyes."

− AMVK.1991.

(1) in relation to the present     
(2) in relation to the past
(3) in relation to the future

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