ARTIST_AS_ALCHEMIST

Now, now, now, now I am writing a paper on a paper—writingwritingwritingwritingwritingwritingwritingwriting. The graphite in my hand glides across the page as words conjure themselves without much effort. And then I pause, returning to the cage of reason so that this prose may hold together.

How does one write on on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing (ad infinitum)?

When you read that phrase aloud, you become conscious of the mouth sounds you’re making— how symbols transmute into vibrations, then into utterances, then into ideas.

This phenomenon, known in psychology as semantic satiation, occurs when a word repeated many times loses its meaning and becomes a mere acoustic event (APA Dictionary of Psychology, 2018).

In the experiment “I Am that I Am” (1960), Brion Gysin combined surrealist techniques and Dadaist recipes with digital algorithms to create a poem where a phrase is chanted until it ceases to signify anything, revealing language’s fragile grip on meaning.

Together with William Burroughs, Gysin exploited similar effects—through cut-ups and mantras—to disrupt habitual thought patterns and open a space for the new (Gysin & Burroughs, 1978).

Alfred Korzybski (1933) famously reminded us that “the map is not the territory”—language is a symbolic framework, not reality itself. We live inside the abstractions we create; to perturb those abstractions is to perturb our experience of the world. If art can reshape language, it can reshape perception.

This issue grows urgent when we consider our collective inability to imagine alternatives to the present order. As Mark Fisher (2014) observes, we are haunted by lost futures— the specters of unrealized possibilities that linger in our nostalgia-driven culture.

Fisher’s sentiment is echoed by Bette Adriaanse and Brian Eno (2025), who argue that when art is defunded or marginalized, we lose not only creative expression but also access to new imaginaries. In defense of art’s essential role as a field of study, they write, “Science makes models of things so we can understand how they work; art makes models of things so we can understand how we work” (p. 12).

Art is not a science, nor decorative luxury— it is infrastructure for feeling potential worlds into being. And yet, this very potential burdens art with the responsibility of fixing what is broken.

Within arts education, I have often encountered the unspoken expectation that artistic practice must justify itself by becoming socially useful or economically legible. As Adriaanse and Eno argue, this pressure arises in part because feelings— unlike numbers— resist quantification. In a world that values what can be measured, art is forced to rationalize its existence.

It doesn’t have to function as a tool within the system —it can shape entirely different realities. Art’s capacity to reshape reality is not merely theoretical —it is a force that first stirred in the quiet corners of my own life.

It all began with play. In 2020, the turn inward originated when confronted by the mounting mental-health crisis —both collective and personal —I recognized that I could only begin to imagine other realities by probing my own. As Carl Rogers taught, “what is most personal is most general” (1961, p. 26). This shift toward introspection was not deliberate but emerged quietly during periods of stagnation. Though I’d found purpose early in life through art (and had the privilege of a supportive environment), growing older revealed a void lingering at the edges of my psyche. Beyond disillusionment with the state of the world, it felt as though I had been sweeping existential concerns under the carpet of my unconscious, all while clinging to optimistic convictions.

While precise moments of reflection are hard to isolate, the early months of the pandemic marked the beginning of a slow but drastic ontological shift. Amid a global crisis, I found myself in a strange liminal space—witnessing collective upheaval while reconsidering the scaffolding of my own life. Over the following years, from isolation, to shadow work, psychedelic exploration, and obsessive reading, it all coalesced into what I now call my personal cosmology —an ongoing set of artistic experiments that both document and enact transformation.

In situating this artistic research within the tradition of auto-theory, I embrace a methodology that fuses subjective narrative and critical analysis into a single practice. Rather than bracket personal experience as mere illustration, auto-theory treats the self as both subject and method, collapsing the distance between “I” and “we.” By actively engaging with my inner disruption—through practices like active imagination, automatic drawing, and ritual —I transmute theoretical inquiry into embodied action. Here, the turbulence of the psyche becomes a site of experimentation, where theory is not just articulated but performed.

Carl Jung’s The Red Book (2012), a collection of recorded visions and inquiries into soul— inspired a way to converse with my inner figures and map the psyche’s terrain.

Resonating with me deeply, I found Federico Campagna’s Technic and Magic (2018) to offer a relevant framework for alternative ways of imagining. A diagnosis of two contrasting modes of relating to reality. The predominant Technic describes modern instrumentalism: a view of the world as machine-like, where value is measured in function and efficiency. Magic, by contrast, reintroduces the ineffable, symbolism, and the sense that unseen forces shape our lives.

Leading me to the time of writing, integrating the magical worldview, as I am losing my mind in esoteric explorations– yet finding great clarity in it.

This thesis assembles my – often-fragmented– creative process of building up, and breaking down structures, and frames it within the alchemical process of transformation, Nigredo, Albedo and Citrinitas. It does not promise solutions, nor assert a utopia. Rather, it offers methods for inner disruption— personal practices that fracture familiar patterns and invite new ones to form.

Leaving unresolved how such ruptures might ripple outward, a question arises; Can the microcosm of personal unraveling reverberate into the macrocosm?

If, as Hermes Trismegistus claimed, “That which is above is like to that which is below, and that which is below is like to that which is above” (trans. D.W. Hauck, 1999).,” then perhaps art’s alchemy lies in its capacity to blur these boundaries entirely.

Writing this itself becomes part of the experiment. As Burroughs (2003) reminds us, the writer’s role is not to impose plot or continuity but to capture “what is in front of [their] senses at the moment of writing” (p. 229). Here, words spill forth in fragmented states of consciousness, later assembled into coherence. In so doing, the act of writing is both an act of creation and recreation, of mapping the unknown of my inner world. Whether it will prove useful to others remains to be seen. Writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing —ad infinitum.

References:

Semantic Satiation. (2018, April 19). APA Dictionary of Psychology. Retrieved April 30, 2025, from https://dictionary.apa.org/semantic-satiation

Adriaanse, B., & Eno, B. (2025). What Art Does: An Unfinished Theory. Faber & Faber.

Burroughs, W. S., & Gysin, B. (1978). The third mind. Viking Press.

Burroughs, W. S. (2003). Naked lunch (J. Grauerholz & B. Miles, Eds.). Grove Press (Original work published in 1959).

Campagna, F. (2018). Technic and Magic: The Reconstruction of Reality. Bloomsbury Publishing.

Fisher, M. (2014). Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures. Zero Books.

Gysin, B. (1960). I am that I am.

Jung, C. G. (2012). The Red Book: A Reader’s Edition (S. Shamdasani, Ed.; S. Shamdasani, M. Kyburz, & J. Peck, Trans.). W. W. Norton.

Rogers, C. (1961). On Becoming a Person; A Therapists View of Psychotherapy. Houghton Mifflin.