BLACK ASH continues the alchemical methodology established in BLACK WASTELAND, examining how symbols, materials, bodies and visual structures participate in the construction and reconfiguration of reality. Its central concern, however, shifts from transformation as an external operation to becoming as a process of subjective formation.
Rather than following a conventional narrative progression, the work is structured through five successive states of consciousness. These states trace a movement from pre-subjective existence, through self-projection, social codification and ontological collapse, toward a condition in which the subject no longer searches for meaning but actively produces it.
The work therefore reframes subjectivity not as a stable identity, but as an unstable and continuously transforming field. Its central question is no longer “Who am I?” but rather: Through what forces, ruptures and material processes does becoming occur?
PROLOGUE-PURITY
THE IMMACULATE CONCEPT
The prologue presents a world prior to the emergence of the individual subject. It describes an undifferentiated perceptual field in which language, identity and self-consciousness have not yet been formed. Darkness, the planetary horizon, the moon, the sea and the black sun operate not as conventional symbols but as primordial forces within a cosmological process of gestation.
The chapter develops through a sequence of desire, simulation, incubation, separation and return. The moon rises, multiplies and fragments; light becomes differentiated; fluid, air and gravitational forces accumulate between the sea and the horizon. These processes construct an intermediate space resembling both a womb and an alchemical vessel.
The chapter culminates in a complete cosmological cycle in which the movement between above and below, light and matter, ascent and descent produces a world. Purity is therefore not represented as moral innocence or emptiness. It is understood as a productive will: the desire of matter to exceed its current form and generate something beyond itself.
THE IMMACULATE CONCEPT
The prologue presents a world prior to the emergence of the individual subject. It describes an undifferentiated perceptual field in which language, identity and self-consciousness have not yet been formed. Darkness, the planetary horizon, the moon, the sea and the black sun operate not as conventional symbols but as primordial forces within a cosmological process of gestation.
The chapter develops through a sequence of desire, simulation, incubation, separation and return. The moon rises, multiplies and fragments; light becomes differentiated; fluid, air and gravitational forces accumulate between the sea and the horizon. These processes construct an intermediate space resembling both a womb and an alchemical vessel.
The chapter culminates in a complete cosmological cycle in which the movement between above and below, light and matter, ascent and descent produces a world. Purity is therefore not represented as moral innocence or emptiness. It is understood as a productive will: the desire of matter to exceed its current form and generate something beyond itself.
ACT 1
-SATURN
ROMANTICISM, SOVEREIGNTY AND THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE SUBLIME
Saturn examines the emergence of the individual subject through the logic of Romantic self-projection. Having separated itself from the undifferentiated world, the subject imagines itself as the centre of existence. Emotion becomes absolute truth, while the external world is transformed into an echo chamber of desire, ambition and self-mythologisation.
The chapter begins with a Dionysian banquet characterised by luxury, intoxication, spectacle and corporeal excess. Classical architecture, red textiles, gold objects, sculptural bodies and ritual performance construct an idealised world of sovereignty. Here, the subject interprets power, pleasure and beauty as evidence of its own transcendence.
This ecstatic individualism is subsequently translated into architectural order. Monumental columns, axial symmetry, repeated structures and metallic surfaces transform desire into hierarchy and authority. Space becomes a system of classification that assigns positions, roles and boundaries. Romantic freedom is thus revealed to contain its own mechanisms of discipline.
ROMANTICISM, SOVEREIGNTY AND THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE SUBLIME
Saturn examines the emergence of the individual subject through the logic of Romantic self-projection. Having separated itself from the undifferentiated world, the subject imagines itself as the centre of existence. Emotion becomes absolute truth, while the external world is transformed into an echo chamber of desire, ambition and self-mythologisation.
The chapter begins with a Dionysian banquet characterised by luxury, intoxication, spectacle and corporeal excess. Classical architecture, red textiles, gold objects, sculptural bodies and ritual performance construct an idealised world of sovereignty. Here, the subject interprets power, pleasure and beauty as evidence of its own transcendence.
This ecstatic individualism is subsequently translated into architectural order. Monumental columns, axial symmetry, repeated structures and metallic surfaces transform desire into hierarchy and authority. Space becomes a system of classification that assigns positions, roles and boundaries. Romantic freedom is thus revealed to contain its own mechanisms of discipline.
Directed by LYCHEN(YUCHENLI), 2026
London, UK
London, UK
is coming soon to the theater