Raw bay mud, printed plastic, Red Lizard Mustika pearl -Type C1 [IND33], CNC milled aluminium, stainless steel, Vibe-Tribe troll 2.0 10W Bluetooth Vibration resonance speaker, GOCH - Terbium Energy Catalyst (QNSOO1), Terbium Dark Psy Energy Pack; Camelbak Octane LR Hydration Pack, printed plastic.

In 2011, ENERGY PANGEA, a multi trajectory accumulator for the realisation of possible worlds through the thematics of energy and consciousness, launched the Rare Earth Sculpture Project. The Rare Earth Sculptures (RES) were then developed to explore the intersection of energy and consciousness with materials science, mineral extraction, global supply chains, geopolitical tensions, complex systems dynamics, actor networks, and hyperobjects.

Building on the legacies of social sculpture, systems art, cybernetic art, land art, and site specific installation, and influenced by emerging discourses on OOO (Object-Orientated Ontology), the Rare Earth Sculptures would explore art as system and network within an expanded framework and understanding of the social, the human, and the non-human; interrogating the intricate relationships between object, environment, energy, material, consciousness, and digital culture.

Terbium (2015) aimed to build on the earlier RES experiments within these domains and then push things even further. By creating through the methods described, the pallet and the inventory for the production of art is vastly expanded; networks of objects and their relationships can be explored in ways where the interactions between the communicating components of the Sculptural System branch out, and can then be looped back into the nucleus of the sculpture, which acts as gravity well, totemic-ritual ornament, and as conductive device for the summoning of a myriad of webs of relationships beyond—or, as in the logic described—within “it,” which is always more than the sum of its parts.

(RES) Terbium began with the prerequisite that the foundational materials of its system will include psytrance (particularly dark, forest, and hi-tech variants) and the website Eden Saga (eden-saga.com) by Xavier Séguin, and then build out from there. Music genres and websites on fringe historical and New Age topics aren’t physical materials, and therefore these would more-so act as substrate or base substance for the production and the emergence of the sculpture. Energy Pangea then decided to use the aesthetic pallet of Eden Saga as "vibe" and began scouting out psytrance producers. We determined—after some consideration—that the sculpture would have a soundtrack, which would act as one of its listed materials just as we had done with Neodymium in 2011.

Informed by the vibes of Eden Saga, the baseline process involved an ongoing exploration into psytrance scenes, genres, artists, and aesthetics in parallel to the production of the central nucleus (what we usually think of as the “sculpture”; the art object, or artefact, is referred to as the nucleus or core, since the real sculpture is the system, not the central “piece” or physical ornament.)

In order for the psytrance and Eden Saga substrates to be applied, meshed, mapped, and embedded somehow (it was speculative to begin with) onto the nucleus, the production of the core would act as chaos-engine and basin of attraction for randomised agent-based modelling, or in other words, it would reflect the emergent properties of complex systems via an interaction between human-consciousness, the environment, and cyberspace to 'smash together random shit and build a narrative,’ or something like that.

Let’s cover the core elements and discuss how they interact, before looping back to the substrate and then mapping it onto the listed assetisation of the sculpture into the blockchain lattice.

The Mud Owl likes to think of itself as the real art. It’s the true art object (in its own estimation) not only because it was hand made and sculpted from locally sourced materials and resembles native and ancient forms of handicraft; it also sits right in the goddamn centre of the whole sculptural system, enthroned in a Nest.

The Nest is a digitally hand sculpted 3D printed plastic model. It has been misidentified as a facehugger from the Alien franchise but this is a mischaracterisation, since its resemblance is accidental. The nest has been printed twice, once as part of the core nucleus to enthrone the Mud Owl, and once again in a smaller sized iteration as part of the Dark Psy Energy Pack.

The Red Lizard Mustika pearl is a lizard pearl purchased from bezoarmustikapearls.com. Lizard pearls are esoteric and mystical items rooted in Southeast Asian (particularly Javanese and Indonesian) shamanic traditions. They are described as rare, naturally formed mystical stones or concretions originating from lizards, typically discovered in caves or jungles of Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo). They are not literal pearls like those from oysters but rather hardened, pearl-like formations—possibly bezoars (undigested masses or calculi found in an animal's body)—that are believed to hold spiritual essence or “energy” from the lizard.

Much like the hyperdimensional oscillator used in (RES) Cerium, 2012, the authenticity of this item is questionable. It comes with a certificate of authenticity but was bought ten years ago (this text is written in retrospective, (2025)) and the certificate has most likely been lost. The website appears to operate in a niche, esoteric market (Southeast Asian shamanic talismans), which receives limited mainstream scrutiny or consumer feedback.

This object sits at the higher level of the star-tetrahedron formation at the top of the nucleus. What it does, if anything at all (and we would argue that it most certainly does something) is speculative, to say the least.

ENERGY PANGEA teamed up with GOCH, a Macedonian psytrance producer specialising in dark and forest variants, and the experimental music label Quantum Natives run by co-founders Awe IX and Brood Ma, to release Terbium Energy Catalyst, a unique Goch track with remixes from Ill Tariq, Brood Ma, Productlaneevol, 2lön, and Recsund.

In homeopathy, the principle of "like cures like" (similia similibus curentur) involves using substances that cause symptoms similar to those of the condition being treated. Homeopathic remedies are often highly diluted, sometimes to the point where no molecules of the original substance remain in the final preparation, based on the concept that the "essence" or "energy" of the substance is retained. In extreme cases, particularly in certain esoteric or experimental practices, some homeopathic preparations may involve writing the name of the substance on the container or using symbolic representations, with no physical trace of the substance present. This is based on the belief that the intention or information of the substance can still have a therapeutic effect.

The Vibe-Tribe troll 2.0 10W Bluetooth Vibration resonance speaker doesn’t contain the rare earth element Terbium, but some vibration resonance speaker’s do contain trace ammounts. The homeopathic principle is thus applied to the sculptural system, where the GOCH - Terbium Energy Catalyst (QNSOO1) release is played from the speaker directly into the core of the sculpture itself, channeling the Terbium energy into the networks substrate.

The Core Framework refers to the scaffolding that structures the “electron-cloud”-like components of the nucleus, holding the core system together. This model was developed throughout the previous Rare Earth Sculpture’s, and with Terbium we sought advanced and skilled production and fabrication techniques to enable its realisation.

This included a CNC-milled aluminium base (with Goch typography) so that the nest would sit in position, and CNC-milled printed plastic cuffs to lock onto the nest and position the star tetrahedron above the Mud Owl, in turn aligning the resonance speaker and lizard pearl on the central axis of the sculptures core. Three aluminium spheres were then used to elevate the core components and emphasise their position as central to the systems network.

Much like the handheld Burial Accessories used in (RES) Thulium, 2013, the nucleus of the sculpture would utilise a set of migratory components that enable activation to extend beyond the sculptures core. By downloading the GOCH - Terbium Energy Catalyst (QNSOO1) release, activators receive a 3D model of the Nest, and are able to print it off and attach it to a Camelbak Octane LR Hydration Pack, or similar product, and thus participate in the extension and continuation of the sculptural network.

2015 / 2025