Regeneration Festival in London: An interactive weekend of exploring altered states of experience

17th and 18th November 2012 at The Tabernacle, London, W11.

Tickets start from just £12: http://regenerationfestival.org.uk/tickets.html

Continuing a stream of public events investigating this hypothesis, including the Wellcome Collection’s High Society exhibition (2010) and an inter-disciplinary conference at the University of Kent, Breaking Convention (April 2011), Regeneration sets out to deliver an enjoyable weekend of creative and thought provoking activities and performances in the wonderful environment of the Tabernacle (Notting Hill).

The component of the event devoted to talks and discussions will be convened by writer, researcher and academic Dr. David Luke under the banner, ‘What do psychedelics mean?’ Talks will be given by Dr. Luke and a host of eminent academics and researchers, including clinical psychiatrist Dr. Ben Sessa, medical & ecological anthropologists Dr. Cameron Adams and Dr. Anna Waldstein, and law lecturer Charlotte Walsh. The talks will explore the possible benefits psychedelics offer contemporary medical, psychological and sociological research and will explain their effects.

The talks will be followed by evenings devoted to exploring and demonstrating ways in which the psychedelic experience has influenced the arts, with particular emphasis on time-based media. Participants will have the opportunity to experience live performances, film screenings and art forming a multimedia environment. Key elements of this explorative environment will include film-art performance by Stanley Schtinter and Susu Laroche, hand-manipulated projections by the Bardo Light Show, brainwave visualization by Luciana Haill, screenings of films (including Solar Flares Burn For You, a programme of British short experimental films 1967-73 from the BFI National archive), art by Tokio Aoyama and an expertly curated soundtrack by DJs. Utilising a hybrid of cutting edge and vintage technology, the environment, while exploring and referencing the psychedelic experience, will accentuate participatory pleasure, while facilitating the sharing of an altruistic, communal experience.

Enhancing this mix of audio-visual pleasures will be a programme of live music from the The Time and Space Machine and Wolf People and sound-art performances by Sterling Roswell and DJ Food.