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we make money not body ~ Bring me home, please

Superhuman, exploring human enhancementBy Regineon July 31, 2012 8:02 PM

Categories:art in London

bio

body

cyborgs

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The City of London through thelens of conflict photography

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From Soviet dial-less phone topost-surveillance art. Things i'veseen in London this month

I finally went to the Wellcome Collection to see Superhuman - An exhibition exploringhuman enhancement.

Glasses, lipstick, false teeth, the contraceptive pill and even your mobile phone - wetake for granted how commonplace human enhancements are. Current scientificdevelopments point to a future where cognitive enhancers and medical nanorobotswill be widespread as we seek to augment our beauty, intelligence and health.

Superhuman takes a broad and playful look at our obsession with being the best wecan be. Items on display range from an ancient Egyptian prosthetic toe to a packet ofViagra, alongside contributions from artists such as Matthew Barney and scientists,ethicists and commentators working at the cutting edge of this most exciting, andfeared, area of modern science.

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Trailer of the exhibition

Yes! Superhuman is all of the above and much more. In fact, the exhibition givesvisitors a lot to chew on. In no particular order, Super human discusses: The definitionof enhancement (is the smart phone an enhancement of our body and brain?) Missingbody parts that get replaced -even if their function is forever lost- in an attempt to'normalize' a body. Man and Machine and the perspective of becoming cyborgs. TheSuperheroes that anticipate transhumanism. A future of humanity timeline. And ofcourse a focus on Sport.

Superhuman gallery shots: Vivienne Westwood's ghillie shoes (via Londonist)

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Superhuman gallery shots (via Londonist)

It's not all RoboCop and Spider-Man though. The exhibition opens on a warning: astatue of Icarus that reminds us that every attempt to improve our bodies and brainscomes with its own set of pitfalls and ethical questions. High heel shoes elevate us buttoo high, they make walking a challenge. Tom Hicks won the 1904 Olympic marathonafter having been doped with strychnine mixed with brandy (performance-enhancingdrugs were allowed at the beginning of the 20th century.) He collapsed on the line.

Prosthetic limbs are a particularly striking case of the perils and advantages ofenhancements.

Aimee Mullins, the double-amputee model and Paralympian, sees her condition as anopportunity. With each new set of legs comes new powers, new function and a newidentity.

Aimee Mullins in Matthew Barney's Cremaster 3, 2002

Oscar Pistorius can now compete in mainstream athletics using his 'blade' legs. Hisperformances prompted the question: does his carbon-fiber give him an unfairadvantage over other runners?

More questions arise if we look beyond the case of Pistorius: Will the distinctionbetween Olympics and Paralympics be erased one day? Or will prosthetics becomeso advanced that they will be seen as an advantage over the 'natural' body?

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Philippa Verney Drinking Coffee with her Foot. Credit: Photograph by Frank Hermann/The Sunday Times/NI Syndication

At the opposite end of the spectrum are the prosthetic limbs whose sole function wascosmetic. They provided no relief nor aid. Such were the prostheses designed for the"Thalidomide babies", these artificial limbs were so bulky and unhelpful that manychildren eventually abandoned them.Thalidomide was a sedative drug given to pregnant women to alleviate morningsickness. It was sold from 1957 until 1961, when it was withdrawn after being foundthat the drug interfered with the development of a baby's limbs. During that shortperiod, 10,000 children in 46 countries were born with deformities as a consequenceof thalidomide use.

The government funded the design of prostheses for children affected by thalidomidein order to make them look 'normal'. The experimental arm and leg prostheses had tobe custom-made but they were clunky and uncomfortable. They replicated the aspectof the limb but were not able to reproduce its function. Many children refused to wearthem.

Pair of artificial arms for a child, Roehampton, England, 1964. Credits: ScienceMuseum London

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Pair of artificial legs for a child, Roehampton, 1966. Photograph: Science Museum,London

Both Mullins' experience as well as the history of the Thalidomide babies makes usrealize that the role of prostheses nowadays is not so much to give a sense of'normality' (at the detriment sometimes of the wearer's comfort) but to accommodate adifference and allow the wearer to embrace a new identity.

A still from Terry Wiles footage from the films of Dr Ian Fletcher, Senior MedicalOfficer in the Artificial limb Fitting Centre at Queen Mary's Hospital, Roehampton, c.1965. Picture: Wellcome Library, London

Speaking of prosthetic limbs. I found these images of elegant women showing theirwooden leg but not their face extremely moving. The legs were crafted by JamesGillingham (1839-1924), a shoemaker based in Chard, Somerset. Gillingham firststarted making artificial limbs after a local man lost an arm firing a cannon for acelebratory salute in 1863.

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Studio photograph of a seated woman wearing an artificial leg manufactured byJames Gillingham

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Woman wearing an Artificial Leg, 1890-1910. Manufatured by James Gillingham ofChard © Science Museum / Science & Society

One of the most pertinent points developed in the exhibition is the shift in perception:what was regarded as exceptional is now ordinary. IVF treatment which made thecovers of newspapers not so long ago is now a relatively routine procedure (in 2009,12 714 babies were born in the UK through IVF.) False teeth and contraceptive pillsare now so common we don't see them as enhancements anymore.

Would someone from the 19th century regard us as superhuman? What will the'normal' people of tomorrow be like? Look like? What will they be able to do better andfaster than us?

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Meet Louise, the world's first test tube arrival. Evening News, 27 July 1978

Quick round-up of the stories, images and ideas i discovered in the exhibition:

Ivory denture with human teeth Credit: British Dental Association Museum

The set of teeth above were known as Waterloo Teeth. Replacement teeth weretraditionally made from ivory (hippopotamus, walrus or elephant). However such teeth

deteriorated faster than real teeth. The best set of dentures in the early 19th centurywere made with real human teeth set on an ivory base. Some of these teeth werescavenged from dead soldiers on battlefields.

Whizzinator (tan). Manufactured by Alternative Lifestyle Systems

The Whizzinator kit was originally marketed as a way to fraudulently defeat drug tests.The kit comes with dried urine and syringe, heater packs (to keep the urine at bodytemperature) and a false penis (available in several skin tones). The manufacturerswere prosecuted for conspiracy to defraud the US government; the device is now soldas a sex toy. Should you be interested...

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A motorised wheelchair with proximity detectors, designed in 1997. Photograph: TheEstate of Donald G Rodney

Artist Donald Rodney was born with sickle-cell anaemia, a debilitating disease of theblood. Psalms is a wheelchair programmed to explore the floor space of the gallery

and symbolises the presence of the artist when he was too sick to attend the openingof his own exhibitions.

'General Adoption of the Rolling Skate'.Illustration by George Du Maurier, 'Punch',1866. Wellcome Library

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Jesse Owens competing at the 1936 Olympics. © The Ohio State University Archives

During the Berlin Olympics of 1936, Adolf Dassler (founder of Adidas) approachedJesse Owens and convinced him to wear a pair of his track shoes in order to improvehis performance.

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Charles Atlas, Don''t waste your time or money on ROT!, 1939. Credit: WellcomeLibrary, London. Wellcome Images

Legend has it that Charles Atlas used to be mocked for being skinny. He went on tochange his body and develop a bodybuilding method and its associated exerciseprogram that, allegedly, enabled weaklings to turn themselves into fit, strong men. Headvertised his method in comic books from the 1940s and the campaign is regardedas one of the most longest-lasting ad campaigns of all time.

The image above shows one page of a correspondence course sent out in early 1939giving instructions in how "in just 7 days YOU can have a body like mine" by using hisDynamic Tension program. The leaflet includes numerous photographs of CharlesAtlas posing in leopardskin trunks and flexing his muscles.

Francesca Steele, Routine. Photo by Simon Keitch

For Routine, the artist Francesca Steele transformed her physique over a yearthrough adoption of bodybuilding training and diet.

Francesca Steele, Routine. Photo by Simon Keitch

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Prosthetic toe, Cartonnage, 600 BCE. British Museum

This artificial toe is one of only a few examples found on or buried with Egyptianmummies. It was initially thought to complete the body after death, essential forsuccessfully passing over to the afterlife. However, signs of wear and repair suggest itmay also have been used in life. Tests using a replica found it was possible for avolunteer who had lost their right big toe to walk successfully while wearing it, with thetoe itself withstanding the pressure of use.

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The Invincible Iron Man: The hammer strikes! David Michelinie, writer; John RomitaJr, penciller; Bob Layton, inker. Marvel Comics Group, 1979

Many comic-book heroes seem to anticipate 'transhumanism' - the application oftechnology to humans to enhance their abilities. Iron Man is a cyborg who will diewithout his artificial heart and whose power comes from his high-tech suit. Spider-Man's special abilities come from his artificially altered biology. And life imitates art:scientists are now developing powered exoskeleton suits to allow paraplegics to walk,while spider silk is providing the basis for new biomaterials used to repair kneecartilage.

Rebecca Horn, Scratching Both Walls at Once, 1974-1975. Image Tate London 2012

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Floris Kaayk, Metalosis Maligna

Yves Gellie, Human Version 2.0, 2007

Yves Gellie, Human Version 2.0, 2007

Yves Gellie toured the scientific research laboratories dedicated to the development ofhumanoid robots.

Yves Gellie, Human Version 2.0, 2007

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Yves Gellie, Human Version 2.0, 2007

Nasal surgery before and after images, 1931. Photograph: Wellcome Library, London

A knitted breast prosthesis designed by the Lactation Consultants of Great Britain andBeryl Tsang, knitted Louise Sargent in 2012. Photograph: Wellcome Image

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A double amputee climbing on to a chair, descending from a chair and moving.Photogravure after Eadweard Muybridge, 1887. Credit: Wellcome Library, London

Also in the exhibition: The Immortal, life-support machines keeping each other alive.The machines are turned on daily but only for one hour (from 12.30 to 1.30 if iremember correctly.)

Evening Standard has photos of the opening.

Superhuman is at the Wellcome Collection until October 16, 2012.

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If You can Smell it, it has MassBy Regineon June 24, 2012 5:39 PM

Categories:body

rcashow

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#A.I.L - artists in laboratories,episode 55: Anab Jain and JonArdern from Superflux

A clinical trial made in 2010 at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel observedthat when male subjects are exposed to emotional tears -- isolated from femalescrying during sad movies then deposited onto a small pad above the male's upper lip,their heart and respiration rates, skin temperature, testosterone levels and levels ofarousal dropped. The men hadn't witnessed the act of crying, nor could theyconsciously smell the tears. Yet, they were influenced by its chemosignals.

The research could obviously be useful to manufacture pharmaceutical but AngelaBracco, who is currently showing her work at RCA's Design Products (Platform 13)graduation show, speculated on the possibility to push the finding even further. Herproject If You can Smell it, it has Mass asks whether it would be possible in the nearfuture to mass-produce women's emotional tears to decrease aggression in humanity.Women's emotional tears could thus be used in prisons or as invisible warfare.

(The fact that the idea is scary and highly unethical doesn't make it any less credible.After all, when did trivialities like ethics and morality stop governments?)

In the future, in a world where emotions of sorrow are valued high, tears are covetedfor their use as means of pacification. The demand for copious quantities of emotionaltears has pushed scientists to recreate human tears within the context of a laboratory.Although the ability to manufacture tears has allowed manipulation to the compound

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Although the ability to manufacture tears has allowed manipulation to the compoundto heighten its potency, it is not to say authentic tears are seen as any less special.

Her graduation project therefore imagines a future clinic for the production and testingof emotional tears.

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To ensure that tears are produce on a large scale basis, the clinic would host TheDelilah Project, a big tear simulation machine that simulates human tear production.The glass sculpture takes the proteins, ions, enzymes and other elements withintears, mixes them together and processes them in a similar way that the human bodyis producing tears.

Because Angela's background is in architecture, she also designed a tear chamber, amisted room where tears would be diffused. Inmates would thus enter the chamberand be submitted to these natural air born sedatives.

Finally, she made a Sad Cinema that uses clips of sad movies to induce tears.Women would sit down, have a good cry and their tears would be collected in aspecially designed tear collecting device.

Male/female tear gland differences (image source)

All images courtesy Angela Bracco.

The RCA show opens today at the Battersea location (see map) and remains openuntil 1 July (closed 29 June.)

The Immortal, life-support machines keeping each other aliveBy Regineon May 4, 2012 7:48 AM

Categories:body

machine 2 machine

Somehow related:Book review - The Sick Rose:Disease and the Art of MedicalIllustration

Tattooists, tattooed

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#A.I.L - artists in laboratories,episode 55: Anab Jain and JonArdern from Superflux

#A.I.L - artists in laboratories,episode 44: Michiko Nitta &Michael Burton

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#A.I.L - artists in laboratories,episode 38: Marco Donnarumma

A number of life-support machines are connected to each other, circulating liquids andair in attempt to mimic a biological structure...

The Immortal - preview from Revital Cohen on Vimeo.

Revital Cohen managed to track down and acquire a Heart-Lung Machine, a DialysisMachine, an Infant Incubator, a Mechanical Ventilator and an Intraoperative CellSalvage Machine. She connected the discarded organ replacement machinestogether and had them 'breathe' in closed circuits. The machines of The Immortalkeep each other alive through circulation of electrical impulses, oxygen and artificialblood.

Salted water acts as blood replacement: throughout the artificial circulatory systemminerals are added and filtered out again, the blood gets oxygenated via contact withthe oxygen cycle, an ECG device monitors the system's heartbeat.

As the fluid pumps around the room in a meditative pulse, the sound of mechanicalbreath and slow humming of motors resonates in the body through a comforting yetdisquieting soundscape.

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Photograph by Revital Cohen

Photograph by Revital Cohen

Cohen has long been investigating how machines, peripherals and even animals canwork as extension of the body or substitutes of body parts. This time however, thehuman body has been removed from the scene. Yet, its presence and fragility can stillbe felt...

The medical machine - whether in use or not - is an object which transcends itsmateriality. Designed and created to perform a single, most meaningful function, wenever subject these devices to a critical investigation as industrial products within thecontext of material culture.

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Photograph by Revital Cohen

Photograph by Revital Cohen

Far from being just assemblages of tubes and circuits, the machines intersect with ourculture, fears and beliefs. The Cell Salvage Machine, for example, blurs the boundarybetween technocracy and the metaphysical. The machine suctions, washes, andfilters blood so it can be given back to the patient's body. The cell saver is used onpatients, such as Jehovah's Witnesses, who have religious objections to receivingblood transfusions. As for the infant incubators, they used to be part of freak showsbefore being adopted by hospitals.

But more tellingly, each of these objects is the product of our attempts to conquerbiology (and our own mortality) with engineering.

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Photograph by Revital Cohen

Photograph by Revital Cohen

Photograph by Revital Cohen

The Immortal will be part of Superhuman, an exhibition exploring humanenhancement that will open at the Wellcome Collection in London on July 19 and runthrough October 16, 2012.

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Brains: The Mind as MatterBy Regineon April 16, 2012 6:26 AM

Categories:art in London

bio

body

Somehow related:The Barts Pathology Museum

Now is always a good time toprotest

Strange Weather: alien flowersin the Arctic, raindrop thatfloats in mid-air and jellyfishsnacks for all

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Mexican cowboys, rubber masksand the little Merman. This wasJuly in London

The City of London through thelens of conflict photography

Bioartefactos. Betweentransgenic crops and ancestralbiodiversity

From Soviet dial-less phone topost-surveillance art. Things i'veseen in London this month

Helen Pynor, Head Ache (detail), 2008

Featuring over 150 artefacts including real brains, artworks, manuscripts, artefacts,videos and photography,Brains: The Mind as Matter follows the long quest tomanipulate and decipher the most unique and mysterious of human organs, whosesecrets continue to confound and inspire.

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Examination of the skull and brain: method of removing the brain after it is severedfrom the body. Henry W. Cattell, 1903. Wellcome Library, London

Katharine Dowson, Memory of a Brain Malformation, 2006

As the intro to the exhibition says, the works displayed include real brains. Completebrains, bits of brains, brains that have been freeze-dried, dessicated or galvanized.The slices of Albert Einstein's brain seem to gather much attention from the press andvisitors alike. I doubt the fascination would have filled its original owner with euphoria.He had indeed expressed the wish to be cremated intact.

The remains of the physicist are in awkward company. They are shown next to a phialof tissue allegedly coming from William Burke's brain. With his accomplice WilliamHare, Burke made a living from murdering poor people and selling their bodies to DrKnox's anatomy school. He was hung on 28 January 1829. Ironically, Burke's bodywas dissected, exhibited to the public in the Edinburgh University Museum andsouvenirs were made and sold from his skin.

Other brains on show includes the one of suffragette Helen H Gardener, the lefthemisphere of mathematician Charles Babbage's brain, and the segment of a suicidevictim, with a bullet lodged in it. This one came with a text explaining that bullet wasn't

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victim, with a bullet lodged in it. This one came with a text explaining that bullet wasn't"the fatal one".

Installation view of 'Brains: The mind as matter'. Courtesy: Wellcome Library, London

Unlike previous exhibitions such as Dirt: The filthy reality of everyday life,High Society:Mind-Altering Drugs in History and Culture or War and Medicine, Brains: The Mind asMatter has a seemingly very specific, very narrow focus: the brain. Not even the mind,just the physical organ. Yet, the exhibition branches out into issues of ethics, history,and reminds us that while some of the moments in the history of neuroscience areglorious, others are downright disgraceful. The exhibition displays a number ofinstruments designed to measure the brain. The one below was developed by SirFrancis Galton, the 'father of eugenics'. Using a variety of 'anthropometric' devices,Galton sought evidence of links between physical appearance and the supposedevolutionary progress of different population groups.

Headspanner, c.1896. The Galton Collection, University College London

This kind of discourse was particularly well received during the Nazi period. A seriesof photos and letters document the case of 3 brothers, Alfred, Gunther and Herbert K.aged 3, 7 years old and 15 months. They suffered from a rare hereditary neuraldisease and were likely murdered in 1942 and 1944. Their mother was told that theyhad died of pneumonia. Like many other people suffering from neural disease, theyhave probably been gassed or drugged, their brains harvested and examined byneuropathologists who went on to continue eminent careers long after the war. As forthe specimens taken from the victims, they were used by researchers until recentdecades.

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Daniel Alexander, Children's cemetery: the grave of Alfred, Günther and Herbert K(2003)

The quest to understand the functioning of the brain is as grandiose and challengingas the one to send men in outer space. Brains: The Mind as Matter can keep you inthe rooms of the Wellcome Collection for hours on end. It's an absorbing, educationaland at times disturbing exhibition.

I was particularly fascinated by the photos amassed by American neurosurgeonHarvey Williams Cushing. Taking pre- and post-operative photographs were part ofhis practice. Two examples below:

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Pre-operative photograph of female patient with craniopharyngioma, 1919.Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, Yale University

Many of the patients in these photographs presented with much more advancedtumours than would normally go unchecked today. The 15-year-old subject of thisphotograph suffered years of headaches, nausea, convulsions, restricteddevelopment and impaired vision before being referred to American neurosurgeonand pioneer of brain surgery Dr Harvey Cushing. She was in and out of hospital forthe next 12 years, although the final letter in her file, from her father in 1931, strikesan optimistic note and thanks Cushing for his care.

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Pre-operative photograph of male patient with pituitary adenoma, 1914.Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, Yale University

An excess of growth hormone caused by a tumour of the pituitary gland in the braincan result in acromegaly and gigantism, where the person grows very tall and suffersa coarsening of the facial features, enlarged hands and feet, and thickening andwrinkling of the scalp. Unfortunately, this patient died after his second operation; hisskeleton was preserved and photographed in comparison with a normal specimen.

More images from the show:

Electrode head board, Bristol, England, 1958. Courtesy: Science Museum

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Santiago Ramón y Cajal

Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Parasagittal section of the cerebellum, 1894. Imagecourtesy of Cajal Legacy, Instituto Cajal (CSIC), Madrid

Spanish Nobel Prize-winner Santiago Ramón y Cajal, whose pioneering research atthe turn of the 20th century gave us an understanding of the microscopic structure ofthe brain. Cajal had aspired to be an artist, but his father had insisted he follow thefamily tradition into medicine. He nevertheless made hundreds of drawing to illustratebrain structure.

Corrosion cast of blood vessels in the brain, 1980s. Gordon Museum, King's CollegeLondon

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Daniel Alexander, 'Haus 40, interior', Brandenburg State Hospital, 2011

Installation view of 'Brains: The mind as matter'. Courtesy: Wellcome Library, London

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Left hemisphere of the brain of Charles Babbage. Wet specimen (human tissue),1871. Hunterian Museum, Royal College of Surgeons, London

English mathematician Charles Babbage donated his brain to be analyzed. He isregarded as a "father of the computer", having invented in 1822 the 'DifferenceEngine', a mechanical computer complete with printer. One of his assistants wasAugusta Ada King, the Countess of Lovelace.

Trephination set. Sirhenry, Paris, 1771-1830. Science Museum, London

Trephines are the surgical devices used for trephination, or trepanning. The basicpractices and tools have remained largely unchanged for centuries. Among thetrephines themselves, with their cylindrical blades, are a large brace to hold thetrephines during drilling, two rugines to remove connective tissue from bones, twolenticulars to depress brain material during surgery and a brush to remove finefragments of bone.

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Installation view of 'Brains: The mind as matter'. Courtesy: Wellcome Library, London

Brains: The Mind as Matter remains on show at Wellcome Collection in London until17 June.

Previously at the Wellcome Collection: Mind Over Matter, Dirt: The filthy reality ofeveryday life, Art, bricks, domestic dust, High Society: Mind-Altering Drugs in Historyand Culture, Exquisite Bodies at the Wellcome Collection, War and Medicineexhibition at the Wellcome Collection in London.

Mind Over MatterBy Regineon April 14, 2012 8:22 AM

Categories:art in London

body

photography

Somehow related:The Barts Pathology Museum

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Notes from the Fotofestiwal inLodz

The Wellcome Collection in London has recently opened Brains: The Mind as Matter,a fascinating and informative show that explores what humans have done to brains inthe name of medical intervention, scientific enquiry, cultural meaning andtechnological change.

The result is a series of rooms filled with representations of brains, as well as realbrains in all their possible states and guises: measured, galvanized, dessicated,modelled, sliced, freeze-dried, diced, scanned, pickled. I'll be sure to share the gorewith you in a future post.

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Ania Dabrowska, After I'm Gone series: Headrest, 2011

Exhibitions at the Wellcome Collections often incorporate a few artworks among thehistorical facts, stories, videos and objects. The latter are usually so compelling that ihardly pay any attention to the art pieces. That would have happened this time toowere it not for Mind Over Matter, a collaboration for which artist Ania Dabrowska andsocial scientist Dr Bronwyn Parry have given a visibility to the medical research ondementia.

Finding a cure for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson'sentails undertaking research on human brain tissue drawn from people who wereaffected by dementia and people who were not. Mind Over Matter demystifies whathappens behind the doors of brain bank laboratories, and in so doing actively seeks torehabilitate, even celebrate, the practice of bodily donation in the public imagination.

The exhibition at Wellcome only features a segment of the whole project. Namely, athe portraits and stories of people who contribute to the research against dementia bychoosing to donate their brain as well as a series of photos taken at the Brain BankLaboratory, The Cambridge University Hospital. Hygienic and crude, the lab imagesunveil what happens to the brain after the donors' death.

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Ania Dabrowska, Brain Donors series: Mr Albert Webb

Ania Dabrowska, Brain Donors series: Eddie Holden

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Ania Dabrowska, After I'm Gone series: Fresh Brain, 2011

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Ania Dabrowska, After I'm Gone series: Ustensils, 2011

Brains: The Mind as Matter remains on show at Wellcome Collection in London until17 June.

Re: Spontaneous human combustionBy Regineon March 7, 2012 8:59 AM

Categories:body

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Spontaneous Human Combustion occurs when a human body bursts into flame and isreduced to ashes without any apparent external source of ignition. Moreover, whilethe body is almost completely incinerated, which requires temperatures of about 3,000degrees, the rest of the room, the furniture remain almost undamaged by the fire.SHC takes place in Charles Dickens' novels but also in contemporary policeinvestigations. A few months ago, the badly burned body of a pensioner was found inhis living room in Galway, Ireland. Apart from his body, investigators could only findminor damage on the ceiling above him and the floor beneath him. "This fire wasthoroughly investigated and I'm left with the conclusion that this fits into the categoryof spontaneous human combustion, for which there is no adequate explanation," saidthe coroner.

Unsurprisingly, the phenomenon is accompanied by much speculation andcontroversy.

Image courtesy Sebastian Rønde Thielke

Sebastian Thielke, a first year student of Design Interactions, looked closely at thephenomenon for a project he showed at the RCA's Work in Progress exhibition whichclosed a few weeks ago.

While investigating the paranormal phenomenon, thedesigner found about long forgotten militaryexperiments that were carried out in the 1960s USA.Thielke's finding tells a fragmented story of howscience, in the name of war, is willing to push theboundaries of what is ethically and morally acceptable,and how far the institutions of national defense arewilling to go beyond what is rational. His work looksalso at the way information technology contributes tothe intertwining of science and occult beliefs.

In the age of information technology these ideas and philosophies have won new

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In the age of information technology these ideas and philosophies have won newterritories on the internet where they can grow and multiply on websites and socialnetworks, and tie into ever growing theories of science and spiritualism, conspiracyand mass deception, Thielke explains on his project page.So far, it seems that the project is more about investigating than designing. What ifound most interesting though is that the designer is ready to explore and comment ona mysterious, paranormal, pseudoscientific phenomenon. As far as i know, this is veryunusual area of research for a designer.

Extracts from the email exchange i had with Sebastian:

Why this interest in spontaneous human combustion? It is such a spookyphenomenon.

Yes, that's a good question. This project was initially a response to a brief. It was atwo-three week project and we had very short time to chose a topic we wanted towork on.

I didn't know much about spontaneous human combustion (SHC). I just rememberreading about it many years ago in a Paul Auster novel, which I've now forgotten thename of. But SHC has stuck in my head since. I really like these kinds ofphenomenons that are so mystical they seem to be fictional and yet they haveoccurred several times in history.

Mary Reeser, a suspected victim of spontaneous human combustion. Her remains,which were largely ashes, were found among the remains of a chair in which she hadbeen sitting. Only part of her left foot (which was wearing a slipper) and her backboneremained

Image courtesy Sebastian Rønde Thielke

I had a look on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_human_combustionand it doesn't appear to be a phenomenon one should take very seriously. Thecauses of SHC are mostly either paranormal or unknown/unobserved. What isthe consensus among scientists about the phenomenon?

There are some scientific or causal explanations, but they all fall short of explainingevery detail of the events. One of the main topics of discussion is the source ofignition: how people actually start to combust. The rational explanations all claims thatthe source of ignition is external, they suggest things such as static electricity from acarpet, a dropped cigarette or a malfunctioning power socket sparking a flame. Whilethese might be valid explanations they don't seem to have been confirmed in any ofthe reported cases, only suggested. And it still doesn't explain how a person sitting ina chair can burn to ashes without the fire spreading to the rest of the house. When abody is cremated it is burned at almost 900 degrees Celsius for about two hours.Investigators have tried to explain this with what they call the 'wick effect', which isalso mentioned on wikipedia. It describes how a body can burn for several hours; the

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also mentioned on wikipedia. It describes how a body can burn for several hours; themelted body fat becoming a flamable liquid, saturating the clothes of the victim and

thus acting as a wick that can burn for hours.

But I didn't really do that much research on the scientific side, and it doesn't seem likethere has been that much research done to explain this phenomenon. Since it is sucha rare occurrence, I guess it is mostly dismissed as random coincidences. But that iswhat is so intriguing about it - that it is such a weird phenomenon. The circumstanceswhen it happens, the bizarre visual sceneries it leaves behind of ashes, burned limbsand melted TVs. It has occurred so few times that it cannot be perfectly explained byscience, yet it has occurred enough times to have earned its definition as aphenomenon. It leaves so much space for speculations into the mystical andparanornal, and that was the part I was most interested in.

So I did a lot of research into Kundalini, which is one of the more mysticalexplanations of SHC. Kundalini is a term used in Eastern philosophies. It is a bodilyenergy that can be awakened through yoga and meditation. Some people believe thatthis energy might be able to cause a human being to combust - that it causes asubatomic chain reaction that heats up the body. I'm not going to go into detail aboutKundalini, there is plenty of stuff to read about it online, but what you discover whenyou start researching Kundalini is that it opens up a huge world of New Ageinterpretations that mixes it with (pseudo) scientific theories. It is amazing to see howdifferent New Age, spiritual/religious cultures appropriate science and piece togethertheir own explanations of how the world works. And I believe the internet plays a keyrole in this. There is so much information available out there for anyone to study, andsince there are no academic institutions governing and validating this knowledge itbecomes an entangling jungle of pocket-philosophy and pseudo-science, whichmutates into various unimaginable forms on blogs and forums. I guess you can saythat this has been my material in this project.

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How is SHC related to the military experiments carried out in the 1960s in theUSA your research refers to?

The thing that lead me to find the items that I presented in the exhibition, was a video Istumbled upon during my research. As I was reading through several odd blogs andforums about SHC and kundalini, there was a few places where a 'video of a burningmouse' was mentioned. When I finally found the video on YouTube, it was this weirdshort clip of an actual burning mouse, which didn't really tell me much. But as I readthrough the comments, I could see that people were discussing and speculating whatthe weird shadow that is seen in the beginning of the clip might be. There was all sortsof stupid suggestions, but one that was particularly interesting was a woman (thename LPK19 didn't actually reveal any gender) who wrote that she had seen the clipbefore when she was working at the Pennsylvania Military Museum. I ended up

emailing the museum about the clip and they told me that it had been a part of theremnants of a military lab in the Alpena Air National Guard Base in Alpena, Michigan,which burned to the ground in 1964.

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Image courtesy Sebastian Rønde Thielke

Image courtesy Sebastian Rønde Thielke

What were these experiments about? Where can we find more informationabout them?

There are no detailed descriptions of what exactly the experiments were about, butfrom looking at the photos and papers it seems like they were dealing with soundfrequencies. There is a photo of an oscilloscope, a spreadsheet where differentfrequencies are noted, plus some technical drawings of what seems to be directionalspeakers. From my research I've learned about something called the SolfeggioFrequencies, which is believed by many spirituals to have healing powers (orpotentially destructive if used in the wrong way). Solfeggio, or Solfège, is an old musicsystem that were used in gregorian chants to associate different note-intervals, withspecific syllables: ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la and ti. It seems that they were using thosefrequencies in their experiments.

Some of the other photos shows men dissecting black, burned corpses of pigs andthere is also an illustration of the anatomy of a pig brain, which of course shows thatthey have been testing on animals.

A third photo shows a person that seems to be meditating. This along with a drawingthat illustrates the seven chakras of kundalini, suggests that they have somehow usedthese ideas and philosophies in their experiments.

Nowhere is there any mentioning of SHC.

Image courtesy Sebastian Rønde Thielke

And what is that helmet you were exhibiting at the work in progress show?

It seems like it is meant to project sound into the forehead of the person wearing it. InKundalini it is believed that the body has seven energy centres called chakras. TheAjna Chakra, also known as the third eye, is situated just behind the center betweenthe eyebrows. It is also associated with the pineal gland inside the brain. I suspectthat they have been trying to somehow stimulate this part, the 'third eye', to affect thekundalini of the test person or animal.

Your project page talks about 'how far the institutions of national defense arewilling to go beyond what is rational.' What do you mean by that? That they arepulling hoaxes on us?

No, what I meant with the word rational was that sometimes military research pursuesideas that has no scientific foundation or that goes beyond what is ethical.

Most of the technology that surrounds us was originally developed for militarypurposes and warfare has always been one of the major drivers of science andtechnological development. In this race to be technologically ahead, military labs have

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sometimes gone too far in their research and experiments. The Nazi experiments orthose of the Unit 731 in Japan are horrible examples of military funded science turninga blind eye on ethics and human rights. In more recent time the CIA Stargate projecthas shown that occult, paranormal and mystic beliefs still have a place in militaryresearch. My findings seems to be from one such program.

Thank you Sebastian!

Related: Delusions of Self-Immolation.

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