DE ARCHITECTS
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S-563
year 1996
source title Atelier Van Lieshout: A Manual
info SKULLS In stark contrast to all Atelier van Lieshout‘s self-expanding structures, machines and weap-ons, he has also produced a series of cells and helmets in which the owner can conversely withdraw and shut himself away from the world. Some of Van Lieshout’s cells are simply cabins to which someone can retreat to concentrate. Others are reminiscent of ‘floating tanks’ where you experience total relaxation sealed off from your surroundings and floating weightlessly on a saline-solution. The firm Koan Float claims that a period in the tank counteracts stress and pain, as well as raising one‘s general resistance. Other firms even promise that a one-hour session in a floating-tank is equal to several hours of night sleep. Van Lieshout’s cells and helmets, however, are based on the Orgone Accumulators developed by the psychiatrist Wilhelm Reich in America towards the end of his life. Reich maintained that orgones were a mysterious, healing life-force that permeate everything. They are attracted by concentrations of themselves and, because the sealed Orgone Accumulators raise the body and air temperature by one degree, they attract more orgones. Reich‘s experiments finally landed him in prison and his Orgone Accumulators - dubbed sex boxes by the authorities - were destroyed and many of his books and manuscripts were burned.
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year 1996
source title Atelier Van Lieshout: A Manual
info SKULLS In stark contrast to all Atelier van Lieshout‘s self-expanding structures, machines and weap-ons, he has also produced a series of cells and helmets in which the owner can conversely withdraw and shut himself away from the world. Some of Van Lieshout’s cells are simply cabins to which someone can retreat to concentrate. Others are reminiscent of ‘floating tanks’ where you experience total relaxation sealed off from your surroundings and floating weightlessly on a saline-solution. The firm Koan Float claims that a period in the tank counteracts stress and pain, as well as raising one‘s general resistance. Other firms even promise that a one-hour session in a floating-tank is equal to several hours of night sleep. Van Lieshout’s cells and helmets, however, are based on the Orgone Accumulators developed by the psychiatrist Wilhelm Reich in America towards the end of his life. Reich maintained that orgones were a mysterious, healing life-force that permeate everything. They are attracted by concentrations of themselves and, because the sealed Orgone Accumulators raise the body and air temperature by one degree, they attract more orgones. Reich‘s experiments finally landed him in prison and his Orgone Accumulators - dubbed sex boxes by the authorities - were destroyed and many of his books and manuscripts were burned.
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