VIGIL: Haunted space, psychometry and spectatorship

Artist Blue Firth, writer and attractor of the strange Mark Pilkington, and myself are (g)hosting an art-science experiment at the Royal Academy of Art... all souls invited...

VIGIL

An Investigation into Haunted Space, Psychometry and Spectatorship

Royal Academy Schools, 1-2 October 2010

Researching a series of unexplained incidents at this historic building, artist Blue Firth uncovered a first-hand account of apparent poltergeist activity in the artists’ studios.

While patrolling the 18th century corridors one night in 2008, Red Collar guard Nathan Phillips experienced something that prevented him from finishing his shift: ‘When I got back to where the skeletons are kept, the doors all slammed shut — like boom, boom, boom one after another. I tried to make out what it could be and checked all the doors again. I got to the same point in the same sequence and the bangs happened all over again. I didn’t finish my patrol that night.’

To make sense of what happened to Nathan, Blue has collaborated with parapsychologist Dr David Luke and writer Mark Pilkington. As preparatory research they undertook investigative training sessions with the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena (ASSAP).

Bringing together their knowledge and experience of the paranormal and arts fields, the trio have devised an event that merges Blue’s art practice with David and Mark’s expertise in making sense of the unexplained. The end result is a unique participatory experiment in which the audience are both observers and the observed, the haunters and the haunted.

Participants will be asked to complete psychological and physiological assessments before and after entering the site of the haunting, which will be monitored for any unusual occurrences. The vigil will take place under carefully controlled conditions and in total darkness.

Combining authentic investigative procedures with subtle performative aspects, Vigil examines and subverts the roles of audience expectation, spectatorship and belief.

Spaces for both nights are extremely limited so we advise reserving your position soon.

Visit the Royal Academy web site (www.royalacademy.org.uk) to buy tickets, or email vigilroyalacademy@gmail.com

Consciousness, creativity and the quest for human happiness

Well at least I have an excuse now for my general lack of content here at psychopraxis recently. For the last few months I’ve been a busy cyber-elf helping source articles for the new edge cutting blog and website on consciousness, creativity and culture – Brainwaving.com

Established and created by the UK’s leading charitable foundation for research into altered states of consciousness and drug policy, the Beckley Foundation, the excellent (imho) new site features hard-hitting articles, films and documentaries on everything from parapsychology and ecology to drug policy, politics, the internet and the future of reality itself. Check it out.

According to the Beckley Foundation’s founder and director, Amanda Feilding… “Our world is changing fast, to adapt successfully we must have our wits about us. We must both maximise our access to the most useful and interesting information and optimise our consciousness, loosening the mind in the quest for better solutions. The Beckley Foundation was set up to investigate consciousness and its full range of altered states. It has a strictly academic, scientific approach to consciousness, how better to understand it and thus how to manipulate it in the quest for enhancing human happiness. The purpose of the new site Brainwaving.com is to expand the Beckley’s reach, to be an Exchange, thereby covering new areas not currently included in the scientific approach of the Beckley Foundation, and reaching new audiences, particularly the young.

The website will be an exchange of interesting information and ideas with the purpose of exploring love, creativity and the quest for human happiness. It will aim to be entertaining and illuminating. We expect it to evolve as it goes along. We see it as an information exchange for people interested in consciousness, evolution and a better world. We hope that with the collaboration of friends and fellow travellers, we will bring together a stimulating train of knowledge and ideas.

Around the world, there are many millions of people who are looking for commonsense solutions to the urgent problems facing humanity. But to see these solutions, we must free ourselves from the constricting shackles of redundant concepts. Brainwaving.com aims to provide a platform on which new ideas can be explored. It can be seen as an intellectual Go-board, an evolving web for the exchange of fresh thoughts at the frontiers of our cultural outreach.”

Halloween and the paranormal

Academic interest in the odd, anomalous and outright paranormal seems to be continually growing. Hannah Gilbert, doctoral student at the Anomalous Experiences Research Unit, University of York, has organised a one-day conference entitled Exploring the Extraordinary, to be held on Halloween, of course. The entire day is spookily inexpensive at just £15 (£10 for concessions) and can be booked though Hannah (heg104 AT York.ac .uk). The line up too looks good, with two talks on drugs and the paranormal alone, I’ll be giving one of them (the talks) as usual, so hope to see you there.

Exploring the Extraordinary

10am-5pm, 31^st October, 2009

W222, Wentworth College, Heslington Road, University of York

Cyberpsychics: Subjective experiences of psychic readings on the internet
Tamlyn Ryan, University of York

Discarnate entities and dimethyltryptamine (DMT): Psychopharmacology, phenomenology and ontology
David Luke, University of Greenwich

Spirits and spirits: Seeing ghosts under the influence
Paul Cowdell, University of Hertfordshire

Ambassadors of spirit
Tony Hegarty, Liverpool John Moores University

Science, pseudoscience and the demarcation problem
Ian Kidd, University of Durham

Reproducing anomalous experiences in the laboratory: A review of some recent research developments in parapsychology
Chris Roe, University of Northampton

Art: L’Ange by Gérard Quenum; Photo: Jonathan Greet