*Blepharopsis

I have a request of immense importance for you.

My brother’s girlfriend studies Arts and is about to write her Bachelor degree theses. The topic she has chosen is a very ambitious one: The influence of psychoactive substances on creativeness – from prehistory to present day. One of the ideas is to bind particular substance with the effect – for example repetitive visual motives, fractals of organic/electronic quality, traces, looped imagery, consciousness expansion in general, extra-dimensionality, synaesthesia, flowing/melting/waving, colour enhancement and other modifications of perception – and then find the characteristic elements and common factors in the work of artists known to use the substances.

This is going to be put in the context of “normal” and abnormal brain chemistry, biology of neurotransmitters, pineal function etc; examples of the influence of trance, meditation, frontal lobe epilepsy, migraine and certain brain syndromes on perception and creative process will be given.

On top of that, she’s going to show structural comparison of the psychedelics with neurohormones and present available data on the distribution of those substances in the brain and their relative affinity to 5-HT class receptors. These data are meaningless and explain nothing on the level of consciousness, but they should impress 10 kinds of shit out of her professors.

The problem is, actual confirmed data linking contemporary art with a specific substance abuse are scarce; there is some of that in the Vaults of Erowid, on Hyperreal an the Lycaeum.

And here comes the question to you:

How experience with certain mind altering substances influenced your or the friend’s of your friend creative process? Or maybe you tried good old sleep deprivation, fasting, meditation, or had a particularly juicy beef steak washed down with some passion flower tea that boosted your creativity? It would be great if you could provide an example of an artwork inspired/committed under the influence. Maybe the friend of your friend (could be imaginary one, why not!) showed it to you and you can copy it from the memory for me?

Sorry for the “nudge nudge, wink wink, saynomore” manner of putting things, but some healthy dose of paranoia is in order when dealing with the subject.

It would be fantastic if you could address that question in some way. You can send me a note or e-mail me here: siwanowicz@yahoo.com

I greatly appreciate your feedback, and obviously guarantee complete discretion from my and my friend’s side. But if you decide to write something to me, don’t use open text – just in case!

Spread the word!