Angel's lift, 2004
The Datura is a two-faced plant : one function is ornamental,
the other hallucinatory and ethnobotanical, associated with witchcraft.
It is extremely rich in alkaloids such as atropine and scopolamine.
The latter is a psychotropic substance that produces levitation hallucinations.
Traditionally, datura extract was absorbed as a cream applied to the
skin. In order to control the dose and to facilitate the absortion,
women would apply the cream to a stick which they rubbed on their
genitals. This probably originated the myth of the witch sitting on
a flying broomstick.
Nowadays, scopolamine is used to treat air sickness, while datura is associated
with high-risk drug addiction, as the effective dose is very close to the lethal one.
In addition to the plants and their cultivation equipment, the installation
included, on the first floor, a transparent green resin cast of a tree
branch of the dimension of a broomstick and the audio record of cosmic
particles colliding with the Earth’s magnetic field. |
