Éric Baudelaire
Tychoscope Portrait (Piergiorgio Pepe & Iordanis Kerenidis), September 5th 2023, 2023

Derived from “τύχη,” Greek for chance, a tychoscope is a device that “witnesses chance.” Invented in the 1970s to investigate telekinesis, the speculative ability to influence or move objects using the power of one’s mind, this tin-can sized robot draws random patterns on paper. In laboratory experiments, human participants were instructed to “bring the tychoscope towards them with their thoughts” during half hour sessions. The tychoscope drawings were then analysed to determine if they deviated from pure statistical randomness in comparison to control sessions of the same duration drawn by tychoscopes with no human subjects in the room. The hypothesis was that any measurable deviation from chance, on a large sample of drawings, would demonstrate the existence of telekinetic phenomena.
At the age of seven, Baudelaire participated in tychoscope experiments conducted in the Trasbior laboratory, overseen by his mother. (…) In 2020, Baudelaire began exploring his family’s history of parapsychological research, including his great-grandfather’s
pioneering studies in telepathy and clairvoyance and created a contemporary replica of the original 1975 tychoscope. The [Tychoscope Portraits] resurrects the Trasbior protocol, inviting visitors to engage in tychoscope sessions. After participants have spent 25 minutes seeking to influence the course of the robot’s movement with their consciousness, a control session is carried out. (…)

Excerpt from the introductory text of Éric Baudelaire’s exhibition What It Is Of, Galerie Barbara Wien, Berlin, November 17, 2023 – February 3, 2024.