ROTTERDAM.- 'Psychedelic' is more than a state of expanded consciousness induced by substances. The dark side of our society - conspiracies, violence and oppression - can feel hallucinatory too. It can shrink our world. AUTONOMOUS brings the activist potential of neurodiversity to life: thinking differently as liberation.
Exhibition and festival: a psychedelic journey
AUTONOMOUS is a psychedelic journey comprising an exhibition and a public festival. Large-scale installations, immersive videos, contemplative artworks and interactive experiences set the tone. Across three chapters - Cognitive Capitalism, Y'all got ADHD, and Psychedelic Pathways - visitors gain access to multiple realities.
Cognitive Capitalism
The first section, Cognitive Capitalism, points to a computer-driven form of hyper-capitalism in which we humans are not only producers and consumers, but also raw material. Our data are ground down into building blocks for algorithms that operate ever more independently. The next step is our brains being programmed by the very technologies we designed. The suspended neon sculpture by artist and neuroscientist Warren Neidich makes us aware of this technological immersion - one we barely notice anymore because we are already so deep inside it. Artists Stefan Panhans and Andrea Winkler and Oscar Peters also open our eyes, with large installations, to the dystopian shadow reality that is increasingly forcing itself upon us.
Y'all got ADHD
The next section, Y'all got ADHD, takes its title from the work of Ieva Valule. With a brand-new self-diagnosis of ADHD - and with help from the dubious ally Freudly AI - she dives into the absurd world of her avatar InfoHuntress. An installation by the artist duo Shy-Play calms the audience - neurodivergent and neurotypical alike - like a kind of rite de passage. In doing so, the work creates a level playing field for visitors to focus on presentations by, among others, Floris Schönfeld, Shertise Solano, the Levenslust Academie/Pluspunt artists andJennifer Kanary. In this way, School of Lovers (2025) by artist and somatic sex coach melanie bonajo, in collaboration with HORA theatre, offers a sensitive, inspiring, genre-crossing reflection on love and intimacy for people with and without disabilities.
Psychedelic Pathways
The final section, Psychedelic Pathways, stimulates the senses in an unusual way - from a consciousness-expanding, ecological, neurodiverse and more-than-human perspective. Visitors are invited to be carried along by holistic diagrams, vibrating sound bowls, provocative tarot cards and immersive installations. Various video works and installations show how closely AI-generated images and psychedelic perception are converging. Suzanne Treister, with roots in the 1970s, sets the tone with alternative worldviews, introducing contributions by Natasha Tontey, Jan Koen Lomans, Charles Stankievech, Antoine Moulinard, Inès Sieulle and Pedro Matias.
With the video artwork Rapture, Andrea Khôra rightly raises a critical note about the way the "second psychedelic revolution" has been marketed and turned into a new business model. In a society where the merger of big finance, big pharma and big tech is stripping us of our last traces of humanity, celebrating our neurodiversity becomes a beacon of resistance.
Curator and research
Following the successful Brutus exhibition Fake Me Hard (2021), Ine Gevers is once again curator. She has worked for more than 25 years at the intersection of art, technology and society. With support from the Mondriaan Fund, she conducted research into cognitive capitalism, neurodiversity and psychedelics - research that underpins AUTONOMOUS.
Gevers and Brutus share a distinctly inclusive mission: attention for marginalised groups, mixing audiences, and deploying art as a driver of social awareness and change.
