How to... take drugs, become an artistic genius and not die trying

From the dawn of time, civilisations have taken drugs to enhance mood, bring people together, awaken inner thoughts and emotions and as part of religious ceremonies. It is, therefore, obvious how such things can aid one in the plight of artistic creation.

The Wooster group is a performing arts troupe from New York who took LSD (Lysergic acid diethylamide, discovered in 1938 by Albert Hofmann)  in 1984 in rehearsal and filmed themselves performing a play. Afterwards, they emulated their actions whilst on the drug and it became “L.S.D. (…Just the High Points…)”. Among the actors were Willem Dafoe (Spiderman) and Steve Buscemi (Conair). This is an example of drugs being used as an artistic aid to bring something new to a performance and to shed a new light on ideas the creators had for the play.

Another instance whereby “art” has been carried out under the influence of the same drug is in a US Government experiment during the 1950s. A patient was given 50 micrograms of LSD and instructed to draw his doctor at hourly intervals. As time progressesd, the drawings become more and more minimalist and less representative of the subject matter. Obviously, the influence of drugs on an artist and their work comes from memory of a drug experience. As can be seen from the drawings done under the influence of LSD, if artists were to create art whilst on a drug, their works would be shambolic and potentially senseless!

A literal example of drug and art is Pill Wheels by Fred Tomaselli. In 1996 he created patterns using assorted pills and capsules, acrylic and resin on a wood panel. It had to be removed from a museum in New York due to the potential risk of drug addicts trying to sequester the pills from the surface of the wood panel. It also posed a problem at airports when immigration officials saw it as a possible method of drug smuggling. Some of the more ridiculous critics also saw it as a way of condoning drug use! Another of Tomaselli’s works is a collage made up of plasters and nicotine patch; perhaps this work was seen as a waste of patches which could have otherwise been used to cure smokers of their cigarette addiction.

Reams of singers have immortalised and praised their beloved heroin in songs; so much so that it no longer  seems a very original subject matter for… any type of art. The Rolling Stones’ Brown Sugar; Guns ‘N Roses’ Mr. Brownstone and Strangler’s Golden Brown. When I was ten, my more innocent mind thought Brown Sugar was an ode to a particularly lovely Black girl. In some ways, infatuation with a person may be akin to a drug addiction. Both are damaging in different ways. Jimi Hendrix, guitar God and genius, sang of Purple Haze (LSD infused marijuana).

Authors and poets have also used their trips to gain inspiration for literary pieces. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the founder of the Romantic movement, was an avid nitrous oxide user and also harboured an opium addiction. His poem Kubla Khan is an extract from a particularly vivid opium-induced dream he once had. It is also rumoured Lewis Carroll ingested the ergot fungus (whence comes LSD) from which sprung ideas for his classics Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass. 

It begs the question: do people take drugs because they are creative, or are they creative because of the experiences they have had on drugs? Definitely not the latter – creativity is not conjured simply from drug taking, as attractive as that idea is. Instead, perhaps creative people are sometimes more open to ideas and experience and so are more likely to try drugs and use them as a catalyst to art. That is not to say one needs drugs to enhance our artistic capabilities. Salvador Dali didn’t believe that. “I don’t do drugs. I am drugs. Take me, I am the drug; take me, I am hallucinogenic.” Indeed, his paintings are very surreal and anyone wishing to trip out without polluting their blood and brains should take a look at his art. The notion of “taking” a human being was taken to the extreme by Keith Richards when he snorted his father’s ashes. No small feat by any means: an urn full of ashes would have taken tens, or hundreds, of sessions to finish, I am sure and would not have gone down as well as other snortable illegals. However, that has nothing to do with art, only the eccentricities of an artist.

Science fuelled inspiration for art when, in 1954, maverick scientist John Lilly conducted a set of experiments based on sensory deprivation research in isolation tanks. He was administered a variety of drugs including LSD and ketamine. He was injected with 2-hourly doses of the “horse tranquiliser” for 3 weeks during which he claims to have communicated with alien and god-like entities. Ketamine is actually used in combination with other sedatives on the elderly, children and small animals, although the notion of a horse tranquiliser is all the more amusing. The research was the basis for the plot of the 1980 Ken Russell film Altered States. “In the province of the mind there are no limits”, said Lilly. And he is completely right. Our brain is so complex that we have not even scratched the surface of possibilities. By using drugs which alter perception and shed a new light on things, we can only increase the possibilities. However, this is not an advocation for abuse; anything used to excess for long periods of time will have a detrimental effect.

One person who did encourage the use of mind-altering psychedelics was Timothy Leary, psychologist and author of Turn on, Tune in, Drop out. The phrase was thought up by Leary as a catchy means to promote the benefits of LSD; the book was a compilation of essays on religion, neurology, educational psychology, politics and, of course, drugs. 

During the sixties, when LSD was still legal, the youth often misinterpreted the phrase to mean: turn onto drugs, tune into the counterculture and drop out of school. Instead, Leary meant turn on/activate your neuronal and genetic equipment; tune into and act harmoniously with the world around you; drop out and detach from convention.

 Given the myriad chemicals out there yet to be discovered, coupled to the infinite possibilities from a multitude of human brains, it is a comforting thought to know that we will never run out of inspiration for something which makes life, and our world, infinitely more pleasing and beautiful – art.