In the Process is a presentation of an ongoing collaboration between Noah Towne and Misael Oquendo. The exhibit features works which explore the aesthetics and a parafictional retelling of the history of the Process Church of the Final Judgment. As part of the ongoing nature of the project we’ve elected to focus on an abstract introduction into the church and its belief systems. The founding members of the church, Robert de Grimston and Mary Ann MacLean met at the church of Scientology’s U.K. branch where they fell in love. As the two developed their love affair (predomiantly based on their mutual interest in psuedoscientific therapy) they created Compulsions Analysis, a theraputic research institution and the prelude incubator for the Process Church. The pair delved deeper into a gnostic spiritual practice and in 1965 upon being declared “suppressive persons” by L. Ron Hubbard the pair founded the Process Church of the Final Judgment. In a letter addressed to the members of the Process church of the Final Judgement, de Grimston, criticized the laity, demanding the church members return to primeval innocence: “At present, you have no purpose because what you are doing is trying to strike a compromise between maintaining the physical and aspiring to the spiritual. Aspiration is not purpose it is a part of unconscious motivation that negates purpose.” Processeans are bound to a sensual and spiritual practice to which de Grimston and MacLean demanded the highest adherence. In reading de Grimston’s address to the church, one is awash with a sense that he is deeply occupied by a fear of a catastrophic state of carnal detention. Often in his letters, he employed the language of the sublime as a kind of spectacular parody of mystical traditions–gripped by psychedelic content. Yet the hippies and this world be damned. Today we find an abundance of conspiracies of the end of times. An age old eschatalogical dilemma. This abundance is borne of the anxious and fearful rhetoric of today’s escapist and reactionary politics. These are conditions that strain the social order and produce radical anaesthetics and divergent social relaties. The relevant insurmountability of the cult’s transcendental tenants is what inspired the promt for this collaboration. Noah Towne · Misael Oquendo March 11th, 2023 - March 12, 2023 IN THE PROCESS In the Process , Installation view #1 1 In the Process , Installation view #2 2 In the Process , Installation view #3 3 In the Process , Installation view #4 4 Exit 1 Noah Towne 2022 Oil on canvas and flashe on canvas 25 x 74 inches 5 Exit (Cult Kid) Misael Oquendo 2023 Digital video, HD projection Dimensions variable 6 Love 3 (Self-flagellation) Noah Towne 2023 Oil and flashe on canvas 25 x 37 inches 7 Love 1 (Blue Emblem) Noah Towne 2022 Oil and flashe on canvas 74 x 25 inches 8 Love 3 (Cross 1) Noah Towne, 2023, Oil and flashe on canvas, 74 x 136 inches 9 Baptism (Still Image) Misael Oquendo 2023 B/W digital video, sound, single channel on Panasonic CRT 15 inches (screen) 10 Audit, Electropsycho Love Romance (Still Image) Misael Oquendo 2022 B/W digital video, sound, single channelon Panasonic CRT 15 inches (screen) 11 Baptism (Still Image #2) Misael Oquendo 2023 B/W digital video, sound, single channel on Panasonic CRT 15 inches (screen) 12 Cult 3 (Red) Noah Towne 2022 Oil and flashe on canvas 25 x 37 inches 14 Cult 2 Noah Towne 2022 Oil and flashe on canvas 25 x 37 inches 13 Special thanks to Christopher White for the flawless documentation & Clearing Gallery noahtowne@gmail.com | misaeljoseoquendo@gmail.com SCREENING LINKS Audit, Electropsycho Love Romance (2022) https://youtu.be/AmHWuRJ2ofM Baptism (2023) https://youtu.be/K7V0tn111OI