Towards A Cosmotechinical Psychedelia
arebyte Gallery 2023
https://www.arebyte.com/helen-knowles-towards-a-cosmotechnic-psychedelia
Presented in collaboration with artist and researcher Helen Knowles, Towards a Cosmotechnic Psychedelia is a screening event followed by a panel conversation looking at alternate states, entity encounters, differing ethical, moral, and social forces, as described in Yuk Hui’s concept of ‘cosmotechnics’. A framework that continues to shape use of psychedelics and plant-based medicinal tools both in Global South’s communities, like Putumayo in Colombia, and in affluent Western societies.
The event is part of Helen’s current PhD research, titled “More Than Human Healthcare”, which involves collaborations with the Psychedelic Trials Team at King’s College London, the London AI Centre, and members of the Inga community in Putumayo, Colombia.
The screening includes the experimental documentary True Hallucinations, directed by Péter Bergmann based on Terence McKenna’s book Journey to La Chorerra. The film details his brother’s journey to Putumayo and the experiments that ensued, blending 90s computational aesthetics with found footage of McKenna and his brother, alongside McKenna’s famously hypnotic oration. This complex historical work forms the basis for understanding the problematic, extractive, Western-centric botanical objective to discover and sail the psychonautical seas of inner consciousness. The screening is followed by a panel conversation with artist and researcher Helen Knowles, King’s College Clinical Trials Manager and psychedelic researcher, Catherine Bird, and artist Andrea Khora, with contributions from Dr. Hernando Chindoy Chindoy, former Representante legal de la Entidad Territorial AWAI del Pueblo Inga de Colombia and co-founder of the AWAI Indigenous University.
The conversation aims at looking beyond the West to move towards anti-universalist and pluralist perspectives on technologies and tools of connection, and explore how artistic interventions and methods of narrative-building can assist us in creating collective awareness and connection in the contemporary context of the climate emergency.
How can we cement solidarity without extractive or hierarchical agendas?
Film screenings, on loop
Péter Bergmann, Terence McKenna’s True Hallucinations - 2h 48’
Andrea Khora, Bolus - 4’31”
Patricia Domínguez, Matrix Vegetal - 21’
Rebeca Romero, Voyager - 5’45”
Suzanne Treister, Technoshamanic systems - 3’26”
Ursula Biemann, Forest Mind - 31’
