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PSI-TOX EXHIBITION - JOLANA IZBICKÁ exhibition catalogue by Phil Shoenfelt, 07/06/2016 |
While viewing the five
pictures from Jolana Izbicka’s “Psi-Tox” series, it would be useful to keep in
mind the Three Domain System, a method of classification first propagated by
the American microbiologist Carl Woese. Woese’s three domains – Bacteria, Archaea,
Eukaryota – can be visualised as a Phylogenetic Tree of Life, comprising
manifold subdivisions of the different cellular life forms. According to recent
research, the number of cells in the human body is actually less than the
number of bacteria – 30 trillion human cells, as opposed to 40 trillion
bacteria – leading some biologists to theorize that we are more bacteria than
human. If proteins and amino acids are the “building blocks of life”, then
bacterial organisms play an essential part in regulating the physical processes
of life. But as we all know, bacteria can be destroyers and killers of life
too.
In early 2014,
Izbická was wrongly diagnosed with encephalitis and admitted to hospital. As
part of the diagnostic process, and prior to having a lumbar puncture, she was
given atropine, a widely-used medication which dilates the pupils, allowing for
an intraocular eye test to be carried out. Izbická reacted badly to the
atropine – a synthetic related to so-called “witches’ drugs”, such as belladonna,
datura and mandrake – and embarked on an extended psychedelic experience, akin
to a ten day LSD trip. As it turned out, she was not infected with encephalitis
after all, but with Clostridium difficile,
a spore-forming bacterium leading to inflammatory infection of the digestive
tract. With the bacterial balance of her gut disrupted, the “bad” bacteria
gained dominance and seemed, in her sensitized state, to be “speaking” to her. In spite of the
disturbing visions and voices summoned up by the atropine, Izbická was able to
photograph herself in this heightened mental state. When she was released from
hospital, and as part of her art therapy, she began to experiment with digital
photo collage techniques, integrating the photos she had taken with her original
artwork. The results are both beautiful and terrifying, and invoke the theories
of such writers as Aldous Huxley (The
Doors of Perception, Heaven and Hell),
Timothy Leary (The Psychedelic Experience,
Exo-Psychology), and the renowned Swiss psychotherapist Carl Gustav Jung. The hallucinatory
quality of these pictures is vivid enough to be shocking. Images of
surveillance (By what? By whom?) abound. In fact, eyes are everywhere – planted
in the hand reaching out for help, in Buddah’s face, even in the vagina. Big
Brother is watching from the forest of the Unconscious, but whether this is a
manifestation of societal tendencies, or a metaphysical state of mind, is hard
to say. Meanwhile, bacterial spore infect the scene, speaking in voices from
another dimension, another domain: “You think we exist only in the gut? Think
again. Body and Mind are one, and we will travel along secret pathways unknown
to you and find a way to destroy your brain…” A terrifying threat indeed, a
manifestation of what Salvador Dali called the “Paranoiac Critical Method”. In
other words, a way of perceiving reality based on irrational knowledge – a
method which reveals an ultimate truth, the nightmare at the back of every
dream. |
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