Among the archives: A Database

This digital archive for contemporary art and visual culture could develop into a Facebook for the global art community Twenty years ago in California I attended, out of curiosity, a New Age convention in Los Angeles. Among the list of lectures on UFOs and channelling, and the stalls selling crystals and the healing powers of swimming with dolphins, I spotted a talk by Dr Timothy Leary. By this time Leary, the champion of LSD, who in 1967 told 30,000 hippies in San Francisco to "Turn on, tune in, drop out", was in his late sixties. I expected an old chap in beads and kaftan, but he turned up in slacks and a cardigan, and instead of LSD enthused about a new system of global communication, built on the free supply of "information in, information out", which was going to change the world. And he was right. Leary was one of the... [read full story]