As bio-cultural custodian of the brain the human skull symbolizes mortality and consciousness. We are warned that messing with it, literally or spiritually, may invite access to death or at minimum, a permanently unhinged self. Motivated by promises of neural utopia, humans have a history of breaking inside their own heads, eagerly boring through protective bone (trepanning) to create gateways of entrée and exit.[i] Those driven by an urge to avoid the anchorage of death in life find ways to splinter consensus reality.
In 1965, in a little under an hour, Dutch medical student and trepanation aficionado Bart Huges, calmly drilled a hole in his own skull with a Black and Decker drill and the aid of a mirror. His self-trepanation was painless, the wound heeled in three days, and it resulted in a sustained euphoric state. Huges proscribed the implausibly visceral practice for anyone searching to be liberated from gravity’s drag. Like a perceptual key, the paintings in “Expresssway to your Skull” conjure neuro-aviation. The spacious, cerebral installation invites us to perceive how a hard edge can slither.
MIKE SCHREIBER was born in Maryland in 1980. He earned a BFA in painting from Maryland Institute College of Art, and an MFA in painting from Rhode Island School of Design. He lives in Bushwick and is co-founder of GCA.
[i] Trepanation, the first human surgery, is an ancient procedure that has been used for medicinal and mystical treatments – exorcising demons, expanding consciousness, curing depression and generally staving off perceptual darkness.
In 1965, in a little under an hour, Dutch medical student and trepanation aficionado Bart Huges, calmly drilled a hole in his own skull with a Black and Decker drill and the aid of a mirror. His self-trepanation was painless, the wound heeled in three days, and it resulted in a sustained euphoric state. Huges proscribed the implausibly visceral practice for anyone searching to be liberated from gravity’s drag. Like a perceptual key, the paintings in “Expresssway to your Skull” conjure neuro-aviation. The spacious, cerebral installation invites us to perceive how a hard edge can slither.
MIKE SCHREIBER was born in Maryland in 1980. He earned a BFA in painting from Maryland Institute College of Art, and an MFA in painting from Rhode Island School of Design. He lives in Bushwick and is co-founder of GCA.
[i] Trepanation, the first human surgery, is an ancient procedure that has been used for medicinal and mystical treatments – exorcising demons, expanding consciousness, curing depression and generally staving off perceptual darkness.