At the age of seven, Éric Baudelaire participated in laboratory experiments designed to investigate the existence of telekinesis, the ability to move objects using the power of one’s mind. The experiments used a tychoscope (from the Greek tycho for chance and scope to see), a tin-can-sized robot that ‘makes chance visible’ by drawing random patterns on paper. During half-hour sessions, human participants were instructed to “bring the tychoscope towards them with their thoughts” and influence the drawings it made. These specimens were then compared to control drawings made without human subjects in the room, to see if they deviated from pure chance and potentially demonstrated the existence of telekinetic phenomena.
The experiments were overseen by Isabelle Baudelaire, Éric’s mother, as part of a programme run by the Trasbior laboratory at the French industrial conglomerate CGE from 1980 to 1981. The programme set out to perform and analyse 1,000 experiments, but was closed down after only 215 sessions when the company was unexpectedly taken over. The tychoscope was lost to science. In 2020, Éric began exploring his family’s history of parapsychological research, including the work of his Nobel-prize-winning great-great-grandfather, and recreated a contemporary replica of the original tychoscope.
What It Is Of continues the Trasbior experiments, aiming to create an archive of drawings from around the world far larger than the 1,000 originally intended. Participants are invited to engage in a 25-minute session where they seek to influence the tychoscope’s movement with their consciousness. The resulting drawings become part of the exhibition and are displayed alongside control drawings made without a subject present. Visitors can compare the specimens and draw their own conclusions. This ever-expanding archive, which probes notions of belief, chance, parapsychology and the interplay between mind and matter, constitutes the work What It Is Of.
