I hear there's another recycling-based piece in your collection: a 12-foot-tall robot next to your pool?
That was my COVID project. I could make up some deep-rooted reason for it, but really I just wanted a robot. Dale Vince designed it from car panels and washing machine drums. He waves his arms and performs a 15-minute LED light show; then I put lasers in his eyes.
The Puspanathan robot, a COVID project. Nicole Reed
Since you were an early adopter of cryptocurrencies, you must also have some non-fungible tokens displayed on some server.
Yes. I'm not entirely sold on the NFT ecosystem (I think 99 percent of them will go to zero), but I'm an ape.
I'm sorry?
I'm boring monkey number 79. [Puspanathan is referring to the infamous series of 10,000 NFTs featuring a sleepy-looking simian, speculated upon by the likes of Justin Bieber and Eminem.] I grabbed the doctor's overalls with a lab coat, which I paid a couple thousand for. It's now in five-figure territory, pretty safely, I think.
You are an advocate for the benefits of psychotherapy, assisted by psychedelics such as mushrooms, in the treatment of mental illness. He has also spoken publicly about his own experience with substances. So, does your art look best on a trip?
[Laughs, a bit nervously.] Many artists have attributed their best work to an altered state of consciousness, whether via psychedelics, wormwood, meditation or even hallucinations derived from epilepsy in the case of Vincent van Gogh. Anything that allows us to imagine a world beyond what we see now will lend itself to artistic creation and appreciation. That said, the best art will do that anyway: I have a Katherine Blackburne painting where sometimes I see something dark, sometimes something joyful. It took me a long time to recognize that it is a mirror of how I feel at that moment.
