What It Is Of

What It Is Of 
Éric Baudelaire
24 August - 3 November 2024

At the age of seven, Éric Baudelaire participated in laboratory experiments designed to investigate the existence of telekinesis, the ability to move objects using the power of one’s mind. The experiments used a tychoscope, from the Greek tycho for chance and scope to see, a tin-can-sized robot that ‘makes chance visible’ by drawing random patterns on paper. During half-hour sessions, human participants were instructed to “bring the tychoscope towards them with their thoughts” and influence the drawings it made. These specimens were then compared to control drawings made without human subjects in the room, to see if they deviated from pure chance and potentially demonstrated the existence of telekinetic phenomena.

The experiments were overseen by Isabelle Baudelaire, Éric’s mother, as part of a programme run by the Trasbior laboratory at the French industrial conglomerate CGE from 1980 to 1981. The programme set out to perform and analyse 1,000 experiments, but was closed down after only 215 sessions when the company was unexpectedly taken over. The tychoscope was lost to science. In 2020, Éric began exploring his family’s history of parapsychological research, including the work of his Nobel-prize-winning great-great-grandfather, and recreated a contemporary replica of the original tychoscope.

What It Is Of continues the Trasbior experiments, aiming to create an archive of drawings from around the world far larger than the 1,000 originally intended. Participants are invited to engage in a 25-minute session where they seek to influence the tychoscope’s movement with their consciousness. The resulting drawings become part of the exhibition and are displayed alongside control drawings made without a subject present. Visitors can compare the specimens and draw their own conclusions. This ever-expanding archive, which probes notions of belief, chance, parapsychology and the interplay between mind and matter, constitutes the work What It Is Of.

Tychoscope Session 

What It Is Of is a participatory work. Visitors are welcome to sign up for a free half-hour session to create a tychoscope drawing which will become part of the exhibition and project archive.

During each session, a single participant is invited to sit at the drawing table with the tychoscope placed on a blank sheet of paper. For 25 minutes, they are requested to sit quietly and focus on the tychoscope, trying to bring it towards them purely with the power of their thoughts. The resulting drawing is numbered and displayed alongside a control drawing created without a human participant.

Sessions are held every half an hour while the exhibition is open. Participants are requested to arrive ten minutes before the session, as late arrivals may not be able to participate. All are welcome to sign up, as long as they are able to sit and focus for 25 minutes.

• Duration: 30 minutes (5 minutes preparation, 25 minutes experiment)
• Participants: One participant per session
• Language: English, French (on selected days)
• Cost: Free of charge
• Suitability: Anyone who is able to sit and focus for 25 minutes
• Please arrive ten minutes before the session. Latecomers may not be able to participate.

Artist 

Éric Baudelaire is an artist and filmmaker based in Paris, France. After training as a social scientist, Baudelaire established himself as a visual artist with a research-based practice in several media ranging from photography and the moving image to installation, performance, and letter writing. His work probes a reality shaped by the systems of representation that structure contemporary societies: political, judicial, economic and informational constructs. His feature films are shown in festivals as well as exhibitions, where they are presented within broader installations that include other works, archival documents and extensive public programmes. He has had exhibitions at Centre Pompidou, MMK Frankfurt, Kunsthalle St Gallen, Museo Reina Sofia, Bergen Kunsthall, (formerly known as) Witte de With, Bétonsalon, Fridericianum, Beirut Art Center, Gasworks, Hammer Museum, and showed work in the Whitney Biennale, Sharjah Biennial, Yokohama Triennale, Mediacity Seoul, and Taipei Biennial. He was the recipient of the 2019 Marcel Duchamp prize, and recently published a monography titled Make, Do, With at Paraguay Press.