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Rijksmuseum Twenthe, 08.09.23-28.01.24

Swiss Psychotropic Gold

The Psychotropic Refinery, Helmhaus Zurich 2022 ©knowbotiq — The Psychotropic Refinery, 2022 ©knowbotiq

GOLD—Mining the Unconscious 11.2.2022 till 10.4.2022 knowbotiq, Helmhaus Zürich

In THE SWISS PSYCHOTROPIC GOLD REFINERY substances and desires diffuse into our techno-libidinous bodies. Driven by logistical protocols and mediated by shamanistic ghosts, gold turns into a stabilizer and tranquilizer, a security, an energizer, an aesthetic partaking: Simply breathe the air. Feel the elegance, the cleanliness and the technological discretion of gold. Around 50% of the gold mined globally is processed in discrete refineries in Switzerland. The work assembles digital found footage in which gold is mined, refined and transformed into gold bars, derivative stock market products, nano-particles of high-tech technologies, or wellness product.

The Psychotropic Refinery, 2022 ©knowbotiq

psychotropic substance to activate Golden Amnesia (Henbane)

THE SWISS PSYCHOTROPIC GOLD REFINERY traces moments when gold loses its stable form, moments of dissipation and dispersion, when its classical manifestation as bullion or jewelry is transformed into other states which weassume as its derivative, psychotropic and molecular dimensions. In order to go beyond the understanding of gold as a store of value, we follow its derivatives, spilling over as uncontrollable flows in different directions. Derivatives of gold contain bodies, flesh involved in mining and consuming —from exploitative labor in mercury-poisoned mines to gold as object of deep desire. What is the spill-over that is channeled through the refineries where it is mixed, melted, and neutralized to the extent that its material origins are not traceable anymore? Separated from their colonial histories, molecules of gold are transformed from violence into virtuality, into 99,9% clean Swissness. People meditate in a timeless zone naked on their bullion - yet those gold molecules wait of being enacted as part of the historical and the social.

Swiss Psychotropic Gold, the molecular refinery, 2021 ©knowbotiq — Swiss Psychotropic Gold, The Molecular Refinery, 2021 ©knowbotiq

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Swiss Psychotropic Gold