Behind the #PsychedelicPioneers - Tapping into the zeitgeist of the psychedelic movement - ART3.io

Photography in the Metaverse

Photography in the Metaverse

Behind the #PsychedelicPioneers – Tapping into the zeitgeist of the psychedelic movement

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These humble yet hallucinatory photographs are available as exclusive NFT editions of six. Buy in #PsychedelicPioneers public sale here.

“Art is this endeavor to leave the animal domain behind, to create another dimension orthogonal to the concerns of ordinary history.” -Terence McKenna

Dean Chamberlain opens our eyes to the idea that the use of light within photography doesn’t merely have to stand as a mundane relationship with the material world but, instead, an agent to suspend matter within a gripping grasp of wibbly wobbly time. Dean uses his original style as a tool to encapsulate the medium of light, painting his compositions with a careful manipulation of photons, effectively, echoing the souls of each individual subject/object. The collection consists of a mixture of topics, some depicting still life with a fresh dreamlike approach, some artists and lost poets of their time and others academic pioneers who have researched the positive effects of psychedelic drugs.

Every one of the 24 photographs within this collection timelessly tap into the zeitgeist of the psychedelic movement from the 60s and 70s. Each NFT works to open the mind of the viewer to the wild, hallucinatory journey of mind-altering pharmaceuticals. Trippy and colourful, the exploratory nature of this work is more akin to a trip rather than a sober state as we re-evaluate what it means to see. Each NFT is listed as ⅙ edition currently starting at a price of 0.13 ETH for still life pieces and 0.165 ETH for portraits. As each item is collected, the remaining editions increase in price.

Who are the Psychedelic Pioneers?

We have selected 4 portraits from the wider collection which allow us to learn the history of some of the figures who have pioneered the path of mind-altering pharmaceuticals during the psychedelic movement of the 60’s and 70’s.

Terence McKenna – The leading authority on the ontological foundations of shamanism

Terence McKenna walked on the wild side of an experimental era. He explored the jungles of the Amazon on the hunt for magic mushrooms, he navigated India hand in hand with hashish and traversed the effects of acid in San Francisco in the 60’s. Terence first found his popularity executing pitches on the positive effects of psychedelics at nightclub raves.

“We have been to the moon, we have charted the depths of the ocean and the heart of the atom, but we have a fear of looking inward to ourselves because we sense that is where all the contradictions flow together.” – Terence McKenna

Terence McKenna is known for being a leading authority on the ontological foundations of shamanism. McKenna is since known as a prolific writer, handling a large range of subjects including metaphysics, alchemy and the theoretical origins of human consciousness.

Timothy Leary – A pioneer of the therapeutic potential of psychedelics

Timothy Leary worked alongside Richard Alpert in documenting the effects of Psilocybin on the human consciousness. They achieved this by administering the mind-altering drug to volunteers and recording their real-time experience of the journey. This research was part of a larger body of work titled ‘The Psilocybin Project’ undergone at Harvard University. At this time, neither LSD nor psilocybin were illegal substances in the US.

“At one point consciousness-altering devices like the microscope and telescope were criminalized for exactly the same reasons that psychedelic plants were banned in later years. They allow us to peer into bits and zones of Chaos.” – Timothy Leary

Tim Leary is most widely known for his exploration of the therapeutic potential of psychedelics. He worked alongside Ram Dass and Ralph Metzner and collaborated on “The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead”.

Albert Hofmann – The pioneer who accidently discovered the psychedelic effects of LSD

Albert Hofmann is known for accidentally discovering the psychedelic effects of LSD on April 19th 1943. On this day, Hofmann unwittingly experienced the mind-altering powers of the drug as he cycled away from the laboratory. This day is now marked in history as ‘bicycle day’.

“I suddenly became strangely inebriated. The external world became changed as in a dream. Objects appeared to gain inrelief; they assumed unusual dimensions; and colors became more glowing. Even self-perception and the sense of time were changed. When the eyes were closed, colored pictures flashed past in a quickly changing kaleidoscope. After a few hours, the not unpleasant inebriation, which had been experienced whilst I was fully conscious, disappeared. what had caused this condition?” – Albert Hofmann

John Lilly – The creator of the ‘isolation tank’

John Lilly is known for inventing the ‘isolation tank’ in the 1950s. He recognised tanks as a means to isolate users from almost all external stimuli. This allowed users to explore the human consciousness without any external distractions. After developing the mechanics of the isolation tank, he then experimented with combining this experience with psychedelics, including LSD.

“In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true, either is true or becomes true within certain limits. These limits are to be found experientially and experimentally. When the limits are determined, it is found that they are further beliefs to be transcended. In the province of the mind, there are no limits. The body imposes definite limits.” – John Lilly

Later in Lilly’s career he used his research towards communicating with dolphins. He studied how bottlenose dolphins speak. During this work he established centres in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and later San Francisco, solely to study dolphin communication

Dean Chamberlain’s humble yet hallucinatory photographs have been minted as NFTs for the first time by ART3.io as #PSYCHEDELICPIONEERS

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