In January 2025, Marcos Lutyens participated in Gifts of the Spirit: Automatic Writing Performance, a work by Ron Athey presented at the Schindler House, MAK Center for Art and Architecture. The performance unfolded as a collective rite in which automatic writing and drawing took place on long paper scrolls laid across the floor, later mirrored through manic, typewritten transcriptions translating gesture into text.
The project emerged from a preceding workshop that brought together 15 automatic writers, 5 ecstatic typists, and 2 editors, who employed techniques such as Gysin/Burroughs cut-up to generate collectively authored texts that directly informed the performance.
Within this field, Lutyens conducted a spoken hypnotic induction, explicitly working to deepen the collective trance state and slow perceptual thresholds, allowing attention to pass from surface action into a shared interior register. The contribution supported the work’s movement toward heightened presence, the dissolution of authorship, and sustained collective intensity.
Holders of the light Zelinda Petrone Rosanna Caputo: Annateresa Curci Caterina Suadoni Colonna Beatrice Catalano Puma Alessandra Onorio Maddalena Bienati Elena Averna Silvia Martinelli Shamanic drum Mario Petriccione (Fondazione Merz)