Assignment Calling experienced psychonauts in the UK

S

sub_rosa

Greenlighter
Joined
Nov 1, 2010
Messages
5
I am a final year photography student at Middlesex University with a blossoming interest in psycho-actives and psychonautics. As a way to integrate these two passions and explore further a field which I find interesting I am doing a portrait project on psychonauts. I hope to find a minimum of 6 people, having already secured two experienced psychonauts I'm already in touch with, I am using the internet to find the remainder. I'm looking for experienced psychonauts as opposed to those just starting on their journey, as I will also be asking questions about how the individuals lives and perceptions have changed over the course of time they have been involved with psycho-actives.

I am based in London and would like to get in touch with those who are living in or around the area.

If you would like to get involved or know someone who you feel is suitable please get in touch, I would really love to hear from you. I am shooting up until 17th November, as we haven't been given an abundance of time for this project, so my mission to find willing psychonauts is an urgent one.

My email address is [email protected].

I hope to hear from you!

Well wishes,

Fran Harris
 
Here is a passage I've written about what I plan to do, it's think it'll answer your question! ;)

The final series will consist of at least 6 portraits of experienced psychonauts accompanied by text. Since it is a topic largely ignored by the media it will be informative and have the ability to raise awareness if shown on a wider scale, although for the foreseeable future it will just be shown to my class and tutors for marking and possibly used in my portfolio with permission from those involved. The shots will be colour medium format and contemporary in style. Along side the images will be either the entirety of my interview with each person or quotations, depending on how much interesting material there is. The interview questions will range from factual (how old are you, how often do you take in psycho-active substances) to subjective (how do you feel your life has changed since you first started your exploration), to get a picture of why the path of psychonaut has been taken and how it has shaped the individuals over a period of time. The whole process itself is unlikely to take over an hour. Since I aim to provide an insight into the different kinds of people that become psychonauts I would like the shoots to take place in a location relevant to the viewer be that home, or somewhere they frequent. Although there won't be much of it in view anyway, it provides a little more context to each portrait. Then at the end of the projects each person will get a print :)
 
Hi Fran, what an interesting project.

May I ask how you intend to deal with collecting potentially incriminating information/images? For instance, placing admissions of drug use beside pictures that could identify an individual could be used as evidence in criminal investigations. This is a worse case scenario, but I wondered if you had thought this through and have any safeguards in place?

I don't want to stifle your project, but it may be for those interested in participating.
 
Hi Tronica,

It is indeed something I have thought about; firstly I intend to use aliases. There is no proof to say my work is not of fiction masquerading as fact. The work will not end in an arena that would be of appeal to police investigations and without the real names of the individuals would not be searchable on the internet, for example. I suppose, when it comes down to the basics, it is whether the individual is comfortable or not with supplying the information and I understand if they are not. Is there anything else you think I could do to ensure the maximisation of safety?

Fran
 
Like you say, this issue rests on how widely the material is distributed.

If it is going to be a public website with identifiable photographs of people with drug materials in their possession - or identifiable images of people with quotations about their criminal behaviour, it is possible (in some parts of the world) that the researchers' materials could be subpoenaed. This problem is why photos in pillreports are restricted - people don't post images of large numbers of pills or of any identifying parts of themselves, even though they are using pseudonyms. The risk, although I imagine it is small, is definitely real.

Pseudonyms may not be the best protection, depending on whether they are used by that person in other parts of the internet and might be linked back to their real names. You may want to ensure the pseudonyms you use are completely different to any other name these people have been associated with - ie. names made up by you, not them - for this reason.

People may be comfortable with providing the information and images, but may not have fully thought through the potential consequences of such information being available publicly and permanently. Although full names are not used, the use of fully identifiable faces associated with a criminal offence does have some obvious potential for negative consequences for your participants and maybe even for you as the person who hold more data about these people / who they are / etc.

Equally I imagine it is nigh impossible to do a portrait project without using fully identifiable faces!? I don't want this to all sound doom and gloom - I'm very interested in such a project going ahead - but these are my thoughts from an ethical perspective, and I acknowledge this is more from a human subjects / health research perspective that would not be dominant in an arts projects.

Maybe the key is to exhibit the work in full to a restricted 'paper' audience, and to use non-fully-identifiable images in any permanent/public/internet display. Alternatively, spelling out the risks to participants prior to their participation means they are at least making an informed choice. But, would you really want to be in the situation where someone makes that decision and things go wrong in the future?
 
As you say, it would compromise the project aim to do non-identifiable portraits, although that could be an interesting idea if I were to do completely explicit interviews. There have been scores of projects on junkies and the like and I've never heard of any problems arising from it, which is what I have to go on in regards to similar past situations, but I agree I would feel terrible if something bad were to come of this for any of the participants.

I think I shall create the aliases myself. And if used on my website (when I finally get round to making one!) they will not be in conjunction with full interviews, but perhaps just an ambiguous quote. In fact just the title 'Psychonauts' alongside the series devoid of any other information would be impactful and non-incriminating, don't you think?

There was a question in the interview I have asked the two people I've shot so far about which psycho-actives in particular they use but I think I'll get rid of that and get rid of the information from the previous two - that is asking people to incriminate themselves, I now realise. The rest of the questions use the terminology psycho-actives and psychedelics where appropriate and do not refer to the legal status of which particular ones in use, which acts as a safeguard.

Thank you for highlighting some important issues which I might not have put so much thought into before.
 
Hi sub_rosa - how did your documentary go? Interested to hear back from you!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top