SUPERHIGH YOURSELF!

BUNDESKUNSTHALLE BONN

Wednesday Late Art
17/08/2016
18:00 – 22:00
Facebook Event

Bundeskunsthalle Bonn is „a forum for art and communication, international and cosmopolitan„. By working closely with many of the leading museums and galleries of the world, the Bundeskunsthalle has established an international network of links with fellow cultural institutions and gained access to wider audiences.The exhibitions and events hosted by the Bundeskunsthalle are integral to the institution’s remit to act both nationally and internationally as a showcase for the open and inclusive concept of culture that has become one of the pillars of the identity of the Federal Republic of Germany.

We have been proud to develop the Bundeskunsthalle’s official summer festival as a ‚SUPERHIGH Yourself!‘. We managed to fill the whole museum’s space with a young audience, in the midst of the summer break. In 1 hour, the event was sold out.

‚SUPERHIGH Yourself!‘ is a spin off from SUPERHIGH, a 40-minute film using mockumentary casting show on getting high without drugs. SUPERHIGH was coproduced by Arte Creative, the online lab of lab German-French cultural TV station Arte.
SUPERHIGH’s world premiere took place in front of an audience of over 300 people on November 20, 2013 at Platoon Kunsthalle, Berlin. In March 2014 SUPERHIGH started to tour as a nomadic event through European museums. For Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven / Netherlands, Eldagsen & Taeubner created a ‘SUPERHIGH Yourself’ parcours around the central video work, hacking the museum’s collection by placing how-to posters and SUPERHIGH tools next to famous art works of the 21st century. Visitors SUPERHIGHed themselves through a range of drug-free methods from DOPAMINE DISCO, ASMR, 12 CYCLE METH BREATH, BIG BINAURAL BEATBOX, CONCHA CONSCIOUSNESS, ENIGMA, GANZFELD, CHRONOSYNCLASTIC INFUNDIBULUM, EYEBALL LICKING, JENKEM, KNOCKOUT KISS or PORN. The museum’s staff wore ‘TRIPSITTER’ T-Shirts and took care of the visitors!

We took it on another level on that Wednesday. This is how it looked like in Bonn.

Bundeskunsthalle Bonn / Germany

Sabine @ Bundeskunsthalle

The event was sold out in 1 hour. 1000 tickets were sold, 10 € each.

One of our 16 Tripsitters at work, providing additional information. Most of them were art history students from Duesseldorf.

Follow the arrows to get to 14 ‚SUPERHIGH Yourself!‘ stations

Radio Bonn trying out GANZFELD GLASSES – live on air. What are GANZFELD GLASSES? The Ganzfeld procedure exposes the participant to ‘unstructured’ sensations by placing half ping-pong balls over the eyes so they can only see diffuse white light. If you add white noise through headphones you have created an alternate version of the floating tank, scrying, or sensory deprivation.

Radio Bonn host, combining CONCHA CONSCIOUSNESS and GANZFELD GLASSES. What is CONCHA CONSCIOUSNESS? Yes we’ve all put a shell to our ears. But have you ever imagined shell earphones? Way back in the seventies they did. And it was advertised in magazines. ‚Wherever you are, you’re turned on by nature…or add it to any other kind of high‘ – that sentence never made sense to us. Until we tried it out ourselves and got into a kind of trance.

The queue: people lining up for tickets.

ASMR: Can videos of whispering girls make you high? It is their attention that induces a tingling sensation in the head, scalp, back, or peripheral regions of the body. Some call it brain orgasm, some a massive childhood feedback, some a weird sexual high. For sure it is the video equivalent of a really nice, mellow kind of drug that leaves no aftertaste. A strange and new phenomenon, this ‚Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response‘.

Tripsitter at work, giving additional information on ASMR.

SUPERHIGH intro videos, welcoming the audience and explaining the structure of the event

SUPERHIGH LOOP – the central video work: a mockumentary casting show on getting high without drugs.

SUPERHIGH LOOP

Follow the arrows!

KIN HEN meditation. DO something colpletely useless with full dedication. We provided a vacuum cleaner and a harmonica to play yourself into trance.

KIN HEN meditation: the ‚Vacuumonica‘, combining vaccum cleaner and harmonica.

Visual High I: CHRONOSYNCLASTIC INFUNDIBULUM. This Visual High was developed by Japanese psychology professor Akiyoshi Kitaoka. He theorizes that when our eyes see alternating light and dark colour shades in a particular order, such as in this illusion, that they will naturally assume a prescribed route of motion according to the object on which they are concentrating. Because Chronosynclastic Infundibulum has so many varying patches in so many shades and shapes, the eyes become overwhelmed. If we concentrate on one spot of the pattern long enough, the eyes will eventually process all the information. You’ll know this when the circular motion appears to slow and then stop completely. To get the motion started again, all you need to do is re-overwhelm the eyes by shifting your focus around the page. You’ll soon be caught in an endless cycle of wrong assumptions and right corrections, of stationary spirals appearing to be animated, alive, and in constant stop-start motion.

Visual High II: ENIGMA. Created in 1981 by artist Isia Leviant, the painting titled Engima has long stumped scientists. Nobody knew why the lines appeared to jitter, how the concentric circles could move, or exactly what it was that gave this two-dimensional illusion its appearance of depth. In November 2008, neuroscientists discovered that most of the blame goes to the microsaccades, the tiny involuntary movements that occur naturally in the eyes at various times. It’s not in the brain, it’s the eyes, that create this visual high.

Follow the arrows!

CONCHA CONSCIOUSNESS

JENKEM HIGH: Would you inhale your own poo to get high? Fermented feces plus urine seems to be an unique drug invention by Zambian kids. We dare you to do it here and now. Just call it #upcycling and it will be easier!

BINAURAL BEATBOX: When played on stereo channels, two slightly different frequencies can cause the brain to perceive a third beating tone. When the perceived beat frequency corresponds to delta, thate, alpha, beta or gamma frequencies of the brain, the brainwaves adjust to those frequencies. As all those states are also created by conventional drugs, a clever marketing guru rebranded binaural beats as digital drugs and got rich by selling them online to teens. We give it to you for free.

Follow the arrows!

DOPAMINE DISCO: Yes, music can get you high! But which songs? Canadian neuroscientists created a playlist that will give you that special kick. The intense pleasure of listening to those songs will release dopamine in the striatal system of your brain. And because dopamine is also released after 30mins of sports or dancing, we have combined those methods to create the DOPAMINE DISCO.

DOPAMINE DISCO: Visitors had been keen to combine it with CONCHA CONSCIOUSNESS and create their own POLYTOXICOMANIA.

Rooftop garden @ Bundeskunsthalle Bonn

EYEBALL LICKING: Yes: licking someone else’s eyeball. Also known as OCULOLINCTUS or WORMING. Teenagers swear to get high on it, in a tingly and erotic sense. Parents swear that this will only lead to pinkeye infections, harder drugs and weird sex practices. Eyeball Licking has been around for years, but the big breakthrough came with the music clip of a Japanese emo band in 2013.

EYEBALL LICKING

12 CYCLE METH BREATH: This breathing technique is based on the ‚Rebirthing Breathwork‘ of sixties guru Leonard Orr. It works like methamphetamines without the negative side-effects and could last for an hour.

12 CYCLE METH BREATH

12 CYCLE METH BREATH

Everybody loved GANZFELD GLASSES!

GANZFELD GLASSES

GANZFELD GLASSES

GANZFELD GLASSES

KNOCK OUT KISS: The KNOCK OUT KISS is a tricky thing, because you need a partner or someone who fancies you enough to kiss you. By kissing with closed nostrils you create a loop of exhalation air in which the oxygen level slowly sinks. And this is the trick for a kick. Good old Marina Abramovic & Ulay followed our instructions in 1977 and managed to kiss for almost twenty minutes until they collapsed.

KNOCK OUT KISS

SUPERHIGH COCKTAIL

SUPERHIGH COCKTAIL: the secret ingredient. A drop will make you smile.

Follow the arrows!

People lining up for the SUPERHIGH COCKTAIL

CANDLELIGHT STARING: If you stare 15 mins into a flame, your brain will play tricks on you.

Aftershow party @ rooftop garden

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VAN ABBEMUSEUM EINDHOVEN

Young Art Night
28/03/2014
21:00 – 02:00
Facebook Event

Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven / Netherlands is understandig themselves as ‚one of the first public museums for contemporary art to be established in Europe. The museum’s collection of around 2700 works of art includes key works and archives by Lissitzky, Picasso, Kokoschka, Chagall, Beuys, McCarthy, Daniëls and Körmeling. The museum has an experimental approach towards art’s role in society. Openness, hospitality and knowledge exchange are important.‘

So they invited Sabine Taeubner and myself to do a SUPERHIGH Young Art Night. And we had a blast!

At Van Abbe, we created a ‚SUPERHIGH Yourself‘ parcours around our central video work, hacking the museum’s collection and placing how-to-posters next to famous art works of the 21st century. Visitors SUPERHIGHed themselves through DOPAMINE DISCO, ASMR, 12 CYCLE METH BREATH, BIG BINAURAL BEATBOX, CONCHA CONSCIOUSNESS, CHRONOSYNCLASTIC INFUNDIBULUM, KNOCK OUT KISS, EYEBALL LICKING, ENIGMA, GANZFELD, JENKEM, KNOCKOUT KISS or PORN. And the museum’s staff? Took care of the visitors! That’s why they wore ‚TRIPSITTER‘ T-Shirts.