In the course of a research expedition to Sicily in 1638, the alchemist Athanasius Kircher had himself lowered into the crater of Vesuvius. There, perched on a rock in the…

The sacred dance, in Maya cosmology, was represented in the sinuous curves of the Vision Serpent - a symbolic representation of the axis of communication between the human world and…

Smoking, taking drugs, Sado-masochistic activities, and wild thumping music are all means of building a Body Without Organs (BoW).  Quite simply, these activities (and others like them) signify attempts to…

Drugs shape the laws and write the very rules they break, they scramble all the codes and raise the stakes of desire and necessity, euphoria and pain, normality, perversion, truth…

Trance parties, festivals, squat-parties and ‘alternative’ cultural events’ are highly contested spaces. Aside from the invariable troubles they pick up with authorities, they are often prone to internal conflicts over…

Apocalypse culture surpasses the usual sardonic postcards from the abyss such as Manson-style pop Satanism, kiddie porn, and iconic serial killers. The tipping of society's sacred cows is a time-honoured…

“We have extended our central nervous system itself in a global embrace, abolishing space and time as far as our planet is concerned,” wrote Marshall McCluhan…

During the last one-millionth part of Earth’s history, the biosphere has undergone a dramatic change. Since the evolution of agriculture 10,000 years ago, eco-systems have progressively made way…

Welcome to the postmodern present where reality is remixed ‘live’ to CNN theme-muzak. In a world where the real is no longer hip enough, there can be no talk of…

The last 13,000 years of human history is a mere nanosecond on a geological timescale. In terms of human evolution, it represents a mere 1% of…