{"id":4666,"date":"1999-01-04T14:28:22","date_gmt":"1999-01-04T13:28:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chaplachap.com\/art\/?p=4666"},"modified":"2025-12-22T12:59:39","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T11:59:39","slug":"ascension-nothing-something-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chaplachap.com\/art\/ascension-nothing-something-good\/","title":{"rendered":"Ascension (nothing\/Something Good)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

view demo<\/a><\/p>\n

1999
\nvideo & sound
\nduration: infinite loop<\/p>\n

exhibited:
\nMark Dean: <\/a>Ascension (nothing\/Something Good)<\/a>, Laurent Delaye Gallery, London, 2000<\/a>
\nEvolution: Video Works by Mark Dean, Millenium Square, Leeds, 2001
\nThe Enigma of Arrival,\u00a0Leeds Art Gallery, 2009<\/a>
\n<\/a>Mark Dean: The Beginning of The End, Beaconsfield, London, 2010
\n<\/a>On the (im)possibility of a pure praise poem,\u00a0Man&Eve, London, 2013<\/a>
\nEvensong for the eve of Ascension Day, Holy Trinity Prince Consort Rd, London, 2025<\/p>\n

bibliography:
\n Simon Morrissey,’Nothing here, nothing to fear’, Contemporary Visual Arts, October 1999<\/a>
\nMichael Wilson,\u00a0‘Mark Dean: Ascension (nothing\/Something Good), Art Monthly, April 2000<\/a>
\nBlack Box Recorder, British Council, London, 2000, ISBN 0-86355-454-7
\nEvolution, Lumen\/Leeds International Film Festival, Leeds, 2001
\nArts Council Collection Acquisitions 1989 – 2002, Hayward Gallery Pub, London, 2003, ISBN 1-85332-230-X
\nLucy Newman Cleeve,\u00a0On the (im)possibility of a pure praise poem, catalogue essay, 2013<\/a><\/p>\n

collections:
\n1\/3: Leeds Art Gallery\u00a0\u2192<\/a>
\n2\/3: private collection, Italy
\n3\/3: Arts Council of England \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a9<\/a> acknowledgements:
\nThe Sound of Music (1965)\u00a0\u2192<\/a><\/p>\n

–<\/div>\n

There is one simple point we have to start from:
\nThe gods never made a single thing out of nothing.
\nBecause, if one things frightens people, it is
\nthat so much happens, on earth and out in space,
\nthe reasons for which seem somehow to escape them,
\nand they fill in the gap by putting it down to the gods.
\nThat is why, once we know that nothing comes from nothing,
\nwe are on the right track already and likely to see
\nhow everything starts and goes on in an ordered sequence
\nand nothing at all is merely the work of the gods.
\nConsider: if things could be made from nothing,
\nthere would be no such thing as the cycle of generation,
\nyou could breed men from the sea, and the land would produce
\nall kinds of fishes and birds, and out of the sky
\nherds of cattle would come tumbling; wild animals would
\nturn up in deserts or farmyards without any reason;
\nYou could not count on an apple-tree giving you apples,
\nbut any sort of tree would produce any fruit.
\n(Lucretius, De Rerum Natura)<\/em><\/p>\n

Perhaps I had a wicked childhood
\nPerhaps I had a miserable youth
\nBut somewhere in my wicked, miserable past
\nThere must have been a moment of truth
\nFor here you are, standing there, loving me
\nWhether or not you should
\nSo somewhere in my youth or childhood
\nI must have done something good
\nNothing comes from nothing
\nNothing ever could
\nSo somewhere in my youth or childhood
\nI must have done something good
\nFor here you are, standing there, loving me
\nWhether or not you should
\nSo somewhere in my youth or childhood
\nI must have done something good
\nNothing comes from nothing
\nNothing ever could
\nSo somewhere in my youth
\nOr childhood
\nI must have done something . . .
\nSomething good
\n(Rodgers & Hammerstein, The Sound of Music)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

view demo 1999 video & sound duration: infinite loop exhibited: Mark Dean: Ascension (nothing\/Something Good), Laurent Delaye Gallery, London, 2000 Evolution: Video Works by Mark Dean, Millenium Square, Leeds, 2001 The Enigma of Arrival,\u00a0Leeds Art Gallery, 2009 Mark Dean: The Beginning of The End, Beaconsfield, London, 2010 On the (im)possibility of a pure praise poem,\u00a0Man&Eve, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":17524,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exhibited-works"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chaplachap.com\/art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chaplachap.com\/art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chaplachap.com\/art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chaplachap.com\/art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chaplachap.com\/art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4666"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/chaplachap.com\/art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23699,"href":"https:\/\/chaplachap.com\/art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4666\/revisions\/23699"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chaplachap.com\/art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chaplachap.com\/art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chaplachap.com\/art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chaplachap.com\/art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}