Bjarne Melgaard, My Trip, 2019, Virtual Reality. Courtesy of the artist and Acute Art, London
There’s a long history between virtual reality and drug culture. One of the technology’s pioneers, Mark Pesce, actually credits his work in creating VR technology to his use of psychedelics. There are definitely parallels between the chemical power of psychedelic drugs that make people disassociate with their bodies and physical environments, and placing a person in a VR headset. Today, the technology is both used by addiction specialists as a tool to help people overcome their substance abuse problems, as well as by VR psychonauts who use the digital world to heighten their psychedelic experiences. For Norwegian artist Bjarne Melgaard, the immersive format offered the perfect chance to work with the strong visuals of a Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) experience.
“My DMT trip was the strongest visual I ever experienced,” Melgaard says. “So I definitely drew parts of my inspiration from this to make something as compelling as possible, because with VR you have the possibility to do stunning visual things.”Aptly named, My Trip,, Melgaard’s first VR project—a collaboration with the new media and technology studio, Acute Art, currently on view at Berlin’s Julia Stoschek Collection—uses a mix of the art nouveau-influenced ‘60s psychedelic style and the lo-fi glitchy cyberdelic aesthetic to create the trippy dreamscape of the 360-degree experience. The content of the work, on the other hand, deals with different interpretations of the title and revisiting characters from the painting and installation work that launched his career. “For me, it was important to revisit the archetypes of my early work, like the Lightbulb Man and Octo in a new medium,” Melgaard says. “These are based on sculptures I made 20 years ago, so it was also almost like doing a retrospective.
While certain references, like ordering illegal substances from the dark web are drug related, a lot of the questions that arise by following Melgaard’s octopus (Octo) and the porous Lightbulb Man around a hacker den, underwater world, outer space and dark corners of the internet, are the Norwegian artist asking if he is still relevant. “I did these pieces over 20 years ago and I’m now 52 years old,” the Norwegian artist says. “As an artist, you ask yourself questions like: am I relevant anymore? This is why it was so interesting to me to put those old archetypes of mine, which have become part of my mythology, into a VR.”
While the characters have an empathetic aspect to them as they traverse Melgaard’s world, there’s also a part in the piece where the characters and viewer are killed, which has to do with the artist’s views on the environmental situation and the philosophy of antinatalism—a philosophical position that associates negative value to birth. “We have gotten to a point where we question if we need to procreate anymore?” Melgaard says. “For instance, people talking about climate change with a three-month-old baby on their lap, but the birth of another child is basically leaves the biggest carbon imprint of all.”
Another parallel between the immersive state of the medium and the content of the piece is the strong social media references. At one point the viewer is submerged in a dark web-like experience while glowing green pornography categories float around. Melgaard himself has felt consumed by the information overload of technology, like the rest of us, feeling depressed as he scrolls through his Instagram feed. “There is a continuous suicide of social media and all of the information gathering,” he says. “I sit there and scroll and see other people have better shows, they look better, they have more fun, they at more parties. And I think ‘What is my life?’”
Still, Melgaard is fascinated by the addictive onslaught of digital information— he is currently working on a new project which transforms his emails correspondence into an immersive experience. But when it comes to heightening his artwork with actual drugs, he’s a bit sceptical. “I think that you should have your acid trip in peace,” he says. “And, you know, let that VR be VR because it’s not the drug experiment. But it’s a free world. I mean, people should feel free to do whatever they like.”
“My Trip” is currently on view at Julia Stoschek Collection in Berlin until 12 January 2020.
SLEEK #64, the trance issue, is out now.
All images by Bjarne Melgaard, My Trip, 2019, Virtual Reality. Courtesy of the artist and Acute Art, London.