Psychedelic Circuitry 1880–1980. Signals between Esotericism, New Religions, Engineering and Art – Their Potentials of Positive Diffraction Today

Abstract

Technologies based on electricity have since a long time been the source for creative, imaginative and esoteric cultures. A first part will discuss critically some examples of interesting interferences between psychic, spiritual and ghostly matters and electric or later electronic hardware touching contexts such as electrophysiology, psychoanalysis, the E­meter and Scientology, 1960s counterculture and New Age ­Culture focusing on finding concepts of circuitry in both their thinking and material culture. The second part will try to re-frame, diffract and de­construct the previous contexts in order to draw interesting consequences for our current practices of research­creation, artistic and experimental design research with­in (semi)­academic contexts.