Hybrid Practices in the Arts, Sciences, and Technology from the 1960s to Today: Hybrid Practices: ESTAR(SER): Re-reading the Hale Experiments: Object-Oriented Ventriloquy in the Cold War

The general problem of deriving information (intelligence, actionable data, orienting indices) from “objects” has long preoccupied scientists, philosophers, and members of the clandestine services. New documentation has recently come to light that bears on this important subject, and a full airing of these striking sources is urgently wanted. There are now reasons to believe that individuals apparently associated with the CIA may well have embarked, in the early 1960s, on a notably non-traditional program of interrogatory investigations into the secret life of brute matter. Were these experiments conducted in conjunction with associates of the Order of the Third Bird? It seems likely. Further work is needed. For now, members of the Editorial Committee of ESTAR(SER) provide a preliminary research report. The Esthetical Society for Transcendental and Applied Realization (now incorporating the Society of Esthetic Realizers) [ESTAR(SER)] is an established body of private, independent scholars who work collectively to recover, scrutinize, and (where relevant) draw attention to the historicity of the Order of the Third Bird. This talk is part of the Hybrid Practices Conference. To learn more or register, visit http://www.spencerart.ku.edu/hybrid-practices.