Off Senses

Sensory Perceptions, Experimental Drug Use and Biography

Abstract

The exploration of sensory worlds and sensory spaces has recently opened up new, exciting fields of research. During the 20^th century, sensory impressions ‘manipulated’ by drugs and hallucinogens led artists and audiences alike to the limits of the comprehensible. The use of drugs also broke through the barriers of a legally ‘permitted’ sensory perception. This opened up spaces of the political, the religious, of escapism, and even neuroethics, for example in the context of experimental drug use. Life, moreover, consists of the perception and memory of the senses in space. Accordingly, the core question of the present article is when and how intoxication after regulated experimental drug use becomes effective by virtue of the senses in constructing space, but also biographically.