Marni Shindelman and Nate Larson – “Witness: A Psychic Collaboration”
www.telepathicwitness.com
www.natelarson.com
www.marnishindelman.com
Here’s another lecture that coverage was requested for – I don’t know much about these guys but it looks interesting in the conference guide:
“Between 1983 and 1990, the US government conducted the Stargate project, consisting of research into the use of extrasensory perception to gather tactical information. While satellite surveillance was becoming increasingly precise, US soldiers were trained to perceive energy, to transport themselves telekinetically into enemy locations.
From 2007 to 2008, collaborators Nate Larson and Marni Shindelman conducted experiments in psychic collaboration between their homes, over 500 miles apart. They developed a specific methodology for making images based on those of the Stargate Project. The images, drawings, and writings of the exhibit Witness document the course of the experiments, the failures, and the nominal successes of the project.”
Fucking hilarious. That is fucking hilarious right? The presentation is about to start now and I’m hoping it’s totally deadpan but knocks me out of my chair laughing. I guess we’ll see.
The woman introducing seems a little nervous. Apparently they wrote their own intro and she had to promise not to read it in advance. So far it seems pretty normal though – publications, details that I listed above, etc. “Larson and Shindelman placed in the semi-finals in the first annual telekinisis competition hosted by the artist collective Noxious Sector” hah.
Marni is on the microphone and apparently Nate just talks really loudly – seems to work. Both people apparently met first at SPE and neither really remembered it. Eventually they officially met and began collaborating.
The intro basically consists of the text I put above. I’m still not sure if they just made it up or not. I’ve heard weirder. Apparently it was “a direct response to soviet research of a similar manner being conducted at the same time.” It was an incredibly lengthy “virtual war” without shots fired.
She says that she used to think she had psychic experiences and Nate used to… really really want to have one.
Marni sent him a postcard and he “loved loved loved” the idea of reporting oddities – presented under the “see something say something” kind of thing, where everyone talks about staying aware, but eyewitness testimony is extremely unreliable. Do any of these things, precautions, etc, actually make us safer?
They got involved in reading these Stargate documents (apparently a real program, I wonder if the tv show was based on hearing the code word) and enjoyed thinking about a lot of stuck up military guys trying really hard to psychically find fugitives or going through similar exercises.
Apparently the trainers from those programs are now running freelance seminars, but they couldn’t afford that so they bought the book on amazon – the basic idea is that you are able to perceive more than you can with your eyes – perhaps as an astral body, go up, check in on the Russians, fly back to the usa. So they followed the government methodology as closely as they could on an art professor’s salary.
The basic situation was that one was the sender and one was the receiver. They used a pendulum to decide who would go first (bought on ebay, usually used for dowsing for minerals). (Diagram about the exchange) Marni went first.
Marni could choose any five things to send during a period of time, and she would photograph the things she sent. She thought for five minutes.
500 miles away Nate concentrated really hard and tried to document the objects she was sending.
The first thing Marni chose was bacon, a little fuzzy rhino, a T-rex toy, a lump of beeswax, and a pile of glitter. Nate then did a drawing – totally nailing the bacon. Also drew a fork, some kind of pile, and sketched really loosely jotting down as many impressions as possible and ideas – just get all the information. Then after the five minutes Marni made photographs of her objects and Nate continued working things out of the drawing.
He says that on one hand you can believe that he’s totally psychic, but on the other hand Marni loves bacon and he knew it. So part of the project is trying to figure out where the threshold for belief is – is the pile really like her glitter? Is the bacon really a hit? Is it all in how you feel about the project?
The second experiment he was in a residency in Budapest, over 4000 miles apart. Nate was sending and Marni was receiving. He chose a theme, thinking about the sky – sent cigarette smoke, a tarot card, a vial of blue water, a Hungarian book on the Russian space program, and cotton balls.
Marni did really light graphite drawings – a series of vectors making shapes – and did not continue working on it after. Her text was really interesting here, but I didn’t catch all of it, hopefully I can get it later. She said she “can’t stop thinking of small animals” and talks about liquid twice, and the profile of a woman…. sort of maybe like the tarot card. Nate again talks of thresholds – how willing are you to read into these things?
During this time, they were also collecting statements from people about what they would or not do with psychic powers. Apparently the military was trying to teleport behind enemy lines and learn how to stop hearts – so they wanted to see where other people would draw the line. Things include “I would know how you really feel”, “I would always know what to say”, “I would know all the answers on the test” etc.
The objects Marni sent the next time were a marzipan bunny, a little thing from Budapest, a stuffed bunny, a dog toy, and a rabbits foot. Nate drew a book, a dog, some Popsicle…. not really too accurate. They both drew books, but they are both academics. At different stages of the process they were trying to figure out if they were successful – was it more interesting if they were? Or more interesting if it wasn’t successful?
Next time they were grouped on classic fluxus pieces: Dice, Rice, hand cream, a cracked egg, and a homemade blowtorch. Marni’s Text “It’s cold cold cold, I’m looking down at myself (you)” .”building bricks, cold I can’t get warm here, or maybe it’s you”.. “The space seems very important”
“I wouldn’t worry about office politics” “I wouldn’t watch TV” “I wouldn’t need advice” “I wouldn’t need to IM” “I wouldn’t check to see if you’re online” “I wouldn’t be so lonely”
The idea of loneliness kept appearing during the work and they felt it was a poignant point. They are both facebook users, myspacers – and there’s idea of loneliness, but there are theorists that argue there is a disconnect, people are linked but lonely. Others say that the tools allow you to connect more – Ambient Awareness – where you can skip the hellos and jump to the meat of a conversation. (also called internet ESP which they like.)
Marni is telling us now about who they looked at: “Paul H. Smith.” but the seminar was too expensive. Marni says she instead got his entire horrible book (used) – papers were declassified in 1995, he’s a US Army retired intelligence officer. On his webpage you can “Test your skills” or “gain levels” by sending in your work.
She said there are some other books that are a little more sensational, but they tried to get as close to the source as possible. Also they showed an airport screening device called the mal-intent which supposedly scans your mind for fluxations while you’re at the airport – but no one has actually bought and installed one yet.
Theres an article about Out of Body Explorations – Astral Travel – Lily Dale church stuff. Nate and Marni decided to travel to Lily Dale – a spiritualist community. In order to purchase a home there you have to be pre-screened for psychic ability. Anyone who wants to live there has to be confirmed as having ability. (oddly enough I lived in a place Lake Pleasant MA that used to be a spiritualist community)
This one is also situated on the side of a lake (are lakes psychic hotspots?)
All kinds of homes there function as psychic business – palm reading, crystal work, new age supply shops, etc. There’s also a chapel where they conduct services. One shingle says “Come to lily dale to find myself, it’s just so easy to get lost in the world.”
They also had to check out the Pet Cemetery – showed us some pictures. The whole wooded area was scattered with little stones – under trees, in lines.
They also had “Inspiration Stump” – apparently where people go to receive inspiration. There’s a concrete shell around the actual stump. There is a lid slid over just a smidge so you can peek through the crack and see the actual stump where you can receive inspiration. Nate says he don’t know about Marni, but he didn’t receive any inspiration when he was on it.
They took a class there “Understanding out of body experiences” (15 dollars for a four hour session) – and they were two of 6 or 7 students. The teacher was a flighty woman in polyester pants – a physicians assistant in the “real world” – who led them in discussions and guided meditations to separate your spiritual body from your actual body. He says it was very Hollywood = “you’re walking through a tunnel… a tunnel… you’re laying down… you’re flying now” etc etc. He says he had strange hallucinations of flashing lights and zig zagging lights on the horizon line – both times they did it.
During that 15 minutes he said he had flashing hallucinations. When he asked her she said that it was really good – “that means you’re about to separate from your physical body” which kind of freaks him out. He says he’s a skeptic but he wants to believe (Marni is a believer but wants to be a skeptic). He said it was really hard to believe that he had a genuine experience after hearing things from the other people “I’m flying over my childhood home – there’s a giant Native American head in the sky!” etc.
When they left they got a card with a list of things that Mediums Do (Do remember that the message is from Spirit and is uplifting) and what Mediums Don’t (Don’t say if you are a Spiritualist medium if you use cards, crystals, or tell fortunes) etc. It seemed like there were a lot of rules.
Nate says that experience didn’t have quite enough of a threshold to push it over into belief.
Now he’s bringing up the idea of Psychic Sprawl – tying it in with the conference theme. They wrote their conference proposal thinking about the distance between them during their experiments.
Marni says the experiment for her became about varying levels of belief – she fully believed in it, hoping that the psychics of lily dale would throw open their doors and welcome her (course nah). They get a little nervous before saying what the work was about while they were working on it.
They didn’t see each other’s drawings until the actual exhibition. She calls her drawings “niave” instead of “chicken scratch” (everyone laughs).
She said she was really receptive but it looks like nate’s drawings were trying to break into her psyche.
She says that if they started to pair the images in a right way – then they could see that maybe it was more successful (or maybe it’s just the way our minds can connect anything). They never saw any of the things from the show until it was being displayed. Marni says she was really excited because maybe they were more psychic than they originally thought – or they are learning how to present themselves as psychically successful.
It’s interesting trying to document and provide a specific methodology for something that’s “outside of the canon” – trying to figure out how to conjure belief.
Having two photographers kept the system as objective as possible – and it was a true collaboration, one piece of work out of one process that doesn’t work without the parts from the other person.
They’re collaborating on a new project called Semaphore (they’re showing some “sketch” images here.) Hah, marni just pulled out two semaphore signal flags and did a pose. Nate’s talking about transmission, transmission packets, and a whole lot of web stuff – nobody cares about your twitter about picking up a veggie pot pie – but perhaps over time these things build up a really complete picture of our lives. (I worry that they start to make our entire lives a self conscious story, we start doing things just because we want to say we’re doing them, not because they actually matter to us)
Semaphore flags were used in world war I. They’re using the flags to present twitter streams – out in the middle of mountain ranges. I’m not sure if anyone can actually see them while they perform it, but the pictures are kind of funny.
For example, he’s on the top of a cliff in San Francisco – he scales the rocky face(with his cheat sheet for signal characters on his iphone, which bounced off a rock ledge below, bouncing about 50 feet – then falls into a tide pool. His first impulse is to update his facebook status – then he realizes he just lost 600 dollars and their semaphore message is Fuck!
[This post to be updated with links, proper spellings, and images!]