ABOUT THERAPUTICA (1978–1979)

 

Therapeutica was a project that used air to describe the neurological processes involved in conscious and unconscious thought transfer. By observing the ways air was manipulated within its fuselage-like structure certain fundamental properties involved in cognitive processing could be determined. Therapeutica existed for a single performance. During this performance the fuselage and the artist, both fed directly from compressed air and helium bottles, were affected by neural transmissions releasing air into the chance machinery of the fuselage.

 

The work comprised three parts: the main fuselage housing two pneumatic vanes, a crossover vane, a transparent battery of confusion plates, a pressure inspection meter, and a memory exchange unit. The second part was a pneumatically driven fan, (representing subconscious intervention) positioned in proximity to the fuselage; the third was an oscilloscope connected to an interphasing box that monitoring neural transmissions and turned them into air pulses.

 

The main fuselage floated in air (supported by helium-filled meteorological balloons) with the artist floating nearby, and electrically connected to the oscilloscope.

 

A series of sensors attached to various parts of his body influenced the pulsing of air exiting the oscilloscope/controller to the pneumatic fan, and the pitch, rollm and yaw of the fuselage. The fan would randomly affect the vanes on the fuselage switching air (conscious matter) to operate various parts of the structure. The result was to avoid buildup of matter in the memory exchanges (small interlocked balloons), which would inevitably cause the performance;s termination. The effects and outcomes of using air as a metaphor for thought could be observed as if in a three-dimensional planar model when viewing the fuselage’s confusion plates.

 

Therapeutica's monitoring of the vestibular system (one of the oldest known functions of the brain), activated the fuselage’s mechanism. This is fundamental to understanding our ability to balance in space; the work attempts to describe out-of-body experiences by neural intervention, allowing one to float unaided in syncopation within a weightless void,

Both air and thought are intangible and ubiquitous and both reveals and manifests its form in Therapeutica that. Four attempts to film a performance in Friuli, Italy, in 2010 were abruptly terminated by inclement weather, the only evidence of the performance is the explicatory photographs.