Spiders on Drugs by Guillaume Lehoux
Spiders On Drugs, or SOD, is a new project by French designer Guillaume Lehoux. Based on the results of a NASA experiment (you can read all about in a PDF file for download here), these bowls were designed to replicate the web patterns woven by spiders who were under the influence of certain psychoactive substances in the experiment.
In the original experiment, the researchers inoculated the test substances (marijuana, caffeine, benzedrine and chloral hydrate) to spiders and then let them weave their webs.
In nature, spiders use webs to trap their prey, but in this instance these bowls are used to trap objects such as fruit or keys.
Normal renderings
Normal prototype
Marijuana renderings
Marijuana prototype
Benzedrine renderings
Benzedrine prototype
Caffeine renderings
Caffeine prototype
Chloral hydrate renderings
Chloral hydrate prototype
i think an interesting argument could be drawn between the mental space of the affected subject and visualized patterning.
does this patterning, that the spiders form, also represent or describe the chemical atomically? it would interesting to see the similarities between spatial patterns of the spiders and each chemical ‘matrix’.
Justin: I don’t think the chemical structure would resemble the web structure – if it does it is probably pure coincidence.