Today I Learned @lemmy.world useless_modern_god @aussie.zone 10mo ago

TIL of the UNDER THE INFLUENCE series in which artist Bryan Saunders took a different drug everyday and drew a self portrait.

In 2000, Bryan painted tens of self-portraits whilst being on mind-altering drugs, and so, "Under The Influence" was born. Within weeks, he became lethargic and suffered mild brain damage. Saunders even became a frequent guest at the hospital. Nevertheless, he continued drawing. The artist sought "experiences that might profoundly affect his perception of self" and when you see just how different each of the drawings from "Under The Influence" is, you can't help but think he succeeded. Saunders said the brain damage resulted in "psychomotor retardation and confusion," but at least it was repairable. He's still conducting this experiment, but over greater lapses of time

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Art doesn't need to know this answer that badly. This fucking guy has taken

dilaudid

morphine

opium

nitrous

pcp

meth

lighter fluid, by huffing

cough syrup at a dose of "two bottles"

I don't even know what a few of these things are, and I'm not going to look up and see how crazy the doses on everything else are, but based on the ones I do know I can only conclude that this guy is trying to kill himself.

And he's succeeding, from the sound of it.
- Don't forget bath salts
  
  Bath salts appear to turn you into Sloth from The Goonies.
- Was it probably mostly an excuse to get fucked up in as many different ways as possible? Yep. May as well do something neat with it
- Except for the lighter fluid, this is not a crazy menu for kids in late ‘70s or ravers in mid-‘90s.
  
  Have you considered the possibility that your childhood in the '70s might not have been representative of the norm? Granted, I wasn't there!
Looking through that was kind of grim, this guy is really going to fuck up his brain and body (well, rather, he likely has). Reminds me of a post modern art course I had where I learned of folks who, for instance, masturbated under gallery floorboards for art, or a guy who went out to sea and just... Disappeared in the name of art. Weird, often destructive shit.

Also lol that this is on BP, the commenters were really WTFing this post, that content is usually not quite so intense.
Witkacy would be proud
- Thank you, these are really good!
- Hah if every artist had to put what drug they are on in any painting I think the world would be perplexed by an artist named ‘coffee’ making so much art.
the dude really likes benzos
While reading this title I thought it was going to be about the awesome podcast Under the Influence, which is about the advertising industry.

https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-70-under-the-influence
- Oh nice thank you. I’m a fan of The Gruen Transfer show and there’s also a podcast called Gruen. All marketing and advertising shenanigans.
I love how on Klonopin he turned into Harold and the Purple Crayon.

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