somniferous observatory
Photo series | 2011 - 2012
Funded by the Women’s Promotion Fund
Theresa Schubert’s »Somniferous Observatory« is a photo series highlighting experiments with the slime mould Physarum polycephalum. The »many-headed« slime mould is a gigantic single-celled organism, which can be found in wooded areas. Schubert selected this biological curiosity as the basis for experiments in cell motility and self-organisation. She cultivated the mould in 100- to 1,000-ml glass flasks in order to observe their growth and form under the influence of various natural substances. The goal of the experiment was to find out whether substances that have a somniferous effect on humans have any visible or measurable effect on a simple organism like slime mould, or whether its growth is purely random.
The photos document how the morphology of the slime mould develops until predetermined conditions inside a three-dimensional enclosure. Despite the simplicity of the organism in a do-it-yourself laboratory, the photos offer answers to questions about life in general, our awareness and our power to control it.
Theresa Schubert’s artistic experiment makes reference to a scientific study from 1948 by the zoologist Hans Peters and pharmacologist Peter Witt. In order to investigate the influence of drugs on the human nervous systems, they administered drugs to spiders and compared how they spun their webs.