Æther is an audio-visual collaboration of Evelyn Bencicova and Samson G Balfour Smith - Screenoise. Æther engages in world-building and storytelling, developing a narrative through body, voice, sound, space, and movement in the 3D realm. 

Chapter O stands for an opening. It deals with rewriting or re-translation of the Genesis story, as one of the most powerful and harmful myths that lay a foundation for Abrahamic religions, but also several preconceptions still present in society to this day. Stories are carriers of culture, influencing our being and understanding of identity. Whether they are based on reality or completely fabricated, they carry important political and societal messages as word-coding engraved in generations' subconscious thinking. They spread, protect, kill, and revive. They are at work at this very moment, and in this case, make us question: Whom does this story, condemning curiosity, especially when attributed to a female figure, serve?

Questioning, reshaping, or reclaiming is our task when we aim for a closer look at this well-known origin story. The tale of Adam and Eve, cast out of paradise by newly found but one and only God after Eve—created secondarily from Adam’s rib—dared to disobey and eat the forbidden fruit, has long been used to justify the subjugation of women. Eve’s defiance, spurred by the serpent’s temptation, supposedly unleashed divine punishment upon all of humanity. The moral, if any, seems to be that disobedience, curiosity, and especially the autonomy of women are inherently sinful, and thus, they should not be trusted. God’s command that man shall rule over woman has been followed zealously for centuries.

At the same time, the meaning of this story could have been entirely different. Most symbols used in Genesis, as well as in Æther (like the tree of life/knowing or snake/serpent), come from pre-Abrahamic times, taken from ancient beliefs and worship that were reused further by monotheism, with meanings radically changed and twisted often to the opposite direction in the service of a new religion. What could not be destroyed needed to change shape to survive, to become encoded, but potentially also misused.

Looking at the meaning of the original words used, quite a different story (or at least the possibility of it) comes to the surface. Adam as earth, humanity, and Eve as life, eating as perceiving, fruit/information, and the multi-layered symbol of the serpent – pharmakon: poison and a cure. The retranslation of Æther departs from here when telling the story of human consciousness in the fall from the guided garden, from innocence into knowing oneself, painful as well as empowering - freeing oneself in such separation, becoming aware.

In the second layer of this tale about consciousness, another story emerges – the one of Eve transformed from the burden of sin and shame. She becomes the hero of the story righteously, as she has been, and the one most harmed by it. What sets her free is the knowledge that gives her the courage to act and to question the construct that kept her constrained, physically, socially, and mentally by someone else's control, fear, or imagination. 

Avatar Eve (built according to the body of Evelyn B ) breaks from the prison of power through shame and guilt, reclaiming her body and perspective. Æther embodies a journey transcending an individual, personal but also collective, centuries-long yet ongoing. It offers a counter-narrative, using this archetypal story as an opportunity to engage this critique of myth-making in the hands of power.  The key takeaway is that stories shouldn’t be accepted blindly or interpreted literally. Our access to information, exchange and agency allows us to question, challenge, and change some of the deeply rooted structures retroactively.  The power we share in this must be taken seriously and exercised responsibly, yet shall not be feared.