by Rebecca Edwards
Read more about the event here.
Human consciousness becomes intertwined with the digital and ethereal realm, leaving an indelible mark on the way we perceive, structure and verbalise inner reasoning. In the screening and panel conversation co-curated with Helen Knowles, featuring film works by Suzanne Triester and Patricia Domínguez and others, we see this technological network play out through embodied experience, techno-spiritual renderings and narrative-building beyond sentience.
Towards a Cosmotechnic Psychedelia, 2023. arebyte Gallery, London. Image: Jack Jones.
In the selected film works, we also see a move towards anti-universalist and pluralist perspectives on technologies and tools of connection in the West. Through artistic interventions via documentary / sci-fi / ficticious / reality-based methods of narrative-building, we see a collective awareness and connection in understanding the problematic, extractive, Western-centric botanical objective to discover and sail the psychonautical seas of inner consciousness.
More contemporary takes on the points raised (or ignored) in McKenna’s lifework: Ursula Biemann’s exploration of intelligence in nature from both shamanic and scientific perspectives and Patricia Dominguez’s enquiry into experimental ethnobotany and organic connection technologies that expand the perception of the vegetal and the spiritual world. Looking towards an embodied approach of psychedelics in medicine and mental health, Andrea Khora visualises the effects of 10mg of ketamine inserted intravenously, creating hallucinogenic and otherworldly images. Suzanne Triester approaches non-colonialist plans towards a techno-spiritual imaginary of alternative visions of survival on earth via a body of work titled Technoshamanism. This sees an expansion and redefinition of technology that is engineered and redirected in new ways for global positive futures away from mainstream economic, corporate and governmental forces. Rebeca Romero’s Voyager also questions the legitimacy of the notion of “discovery” and proposes a reassessment of dominant notions of intelligence, technology, and knowledge.
Listen to the panel discussion here
This event was part of a wider project Helen is carrying out for her PhD called More than Human Healthcare. “This research focuses on two kinds of non/more-than-human care that tend to human health, that have not previously been considered in tandem. These are: AI doctors, and entities met during psychedelic and plant medicine experiences that users form a caring relationship with. It engages experts and users in the developing area of AI medical imaging specifically in relation to the AI doctor, (London AI Centre, King’s College, London) in parallel with the emerging use of psychedelics in mental health (King’s College, London) and traditional entheogenic plant medicines used by indigenous Inga peoples of Putumayo, Colombia supported by Dr. Hernando Chindoy Chindoy and co-founder of the AWAI Indigenous University and Inga Leader (2019-2023).”
The tree: AI generated image of an entity met by a participant in the psychedelic integration group
An event around this, exploring the use of 360 film mechanics and AI generated visions made by Metaobjects is showing at an event at The Science Gallery on Dec 8 2023. It asks “Can we go as far as to claim allyship with these entities, which constitute a form of more-than-human intelligence? Or is entity encounter just a projection of our internal dialogues?”
For Taita Hernando Chindoy Chindoy, “art is a very good way of expressing how we think and how we see the world. And then through that, we have had a lot of allies. This indigenous body has been supported by the ministry of education and by other universities abroad.” He also reflects on the misappropriation of colonialisation of centuries old ritual and medicine co-opted by the West: “for indigenous people, ….they don’t have the tools that we have here in the scientific world, new technologies and computers, and how you can synthesise (plants). We work through energy. Through chanting and through words and thoughts. The dialogue is between thought and there's no use of words so much, using the thoughts, you can reach hearts.”
The idea of using thought and energy to converse and great narratives and stories surrounding these practices is a beautiful image. It makes me think of the way Trust the Medicine is questioning allyship and the ‘realness’ of encounters in addition to the use of AI imaging in this too. Can we say that text-to-image models create a somewhat similar outcome to hallucination or visioning in the aesthetic sense?
For Andrea, the event extended ideas within her PhD work, looking at the intersection of altered states —mostly psychedelics — and institutions. “In particular, I examine the intersections between altered states and medical systems, capitalism, and larger structures such as military and government. It’s important to note that I’m really looking at these spaces in a western context — and questioning what novel states, spaces, entities, or systems this collision brings forth.”
Andrea presented her work Bolus, and foregrounded it as being inadvertently aligned to her PhD. “My film, BOLUS, is rooted in my personal journey with Ketamine IV therapy, which I first underwent about two and a half years ago to address my treatment-resistant depression… I receive 90 mg of liquid ketamine over the course of 45 minutes. After the first ten minutes, they administer a BOLUS of 10 mg straight into the IV cannula, which ensures that a full dissociative experience takes place — the event my film is named for.
Andrea Khora, still from BOLUS, 2022
Speaking of one’s trips can sometimes be like trying to tell someone about your dreams — unless you’re living it, it can be boring and in the case of ketamine and other mind altering substances, language fails to capture the experience in any meaningful way. In this medicalised hallucinatory space, even the concept of being a singular being or human becomes unthinkable. As the treatment progressed and I began to feel more myself again, I felt as though I was living inside my research — experiencing myself as both subject and observer in this strange space. This stance of being both a researcher and one that experiences has a long history in psychedelic or other psychoactive agents, from Freud in his experiments with cocaine to Albert Hoffman’s famous first heroic dose of LSD.”
This idea of dissociation seemed interesting to me in the context of technology - this ‘split’ or ‘breakup’ or ‘estrangement’ one might feel under the influence of hallucinogens feels particularly linked to the way we might feel the same under the influence of technological apparatus, and the way we parse through mediation of screens, wearables, and (para) social relationships.
For Catherine Bird, she looked more into the logistical efforts in trials of hallucinogens in a medical setting. For her, it felt like it was more about going beyond the idea of categorisation and how to engage with “dynamic identities”. She stated “different groups may respond differently to an intervention due to differences in physiology or disease state. Only by studying the effects of an intervention in a range of groups can we be sure that the balance of risk and benefit is favourable for a given group.”
She also spoke on the barriers faced by participants and people running trials like the inegration group and others that include drug taking as part of their process. The biggest issue faced was that of “mistrust” - within this there is a lack of understanding the value, fear, stigma of participating which relates back to the broader conversation around the use of AI in general (through work, creation of imagery, bias etc).
As well as this was the uptake of trials by non-white people. A review looking into “the inclusion of people of colour in psychedelic assisted psychotherapy” saw that:
Of the 18 studies that met full criteria (n = 282 participants), 82.3% of the participants were non-Hispanic White, 2.5% were African-American, 2.1% were of Latino origin, 1.8% were of Asian origin, 4.6% were of indigenous origin, 4.6% were of mixed race, 1.8% identified their race as “other,” and the ethnicity of 8.2% of participants was unknown.
This lack of racial diversity is a strong indication that the burgeoning field of psychedelic medicine is recapitulating the same systemic problems around accessibility and diversity that have long plagued the fields of medicine and mental health. Read more here.