somniferous observatory

A series of photographs based on experiments to grow a species of slime mold inside glass flasks of 100-1000ml, observing the self-organisation and pattern formation of physarum polycephalum under the influence of psychoactive and somniferous substances.

somniferous observatory is a series of photographs based on experiments to grow a makro-species of slime mold inside glass flasks of 100-1000ml, observing the self-organisation and pattern formation of Physarum polycephalum under the influence of psychoactive and somniferous substances.T

The pictures document the morphology of Physarum polycephalum inside 3-dimensional environments. It is dealing with questions of life, consciousness and control by using a simple organism in DIY laboratory setups.

The underlaying question was if substances with sleep inducing effect on humans have a visible and measurable influence on the formation and communication process of this very simple organism – or if it is just random (not connected).

These experiments are a creative re-enactment of the scientific experiment with by zoologist Hans Peters and pharmacologist Peter Witt from 1948. In search for an organism to test the influence of drugs on the nervous system, they fed drugs to spiders and compared the created webs. As spiders react to drugs in a rather different way than humans they soon abandoned the experiments. I felt inspired by the weird study and transferred it to the morphology of slime moulds.