On April 19th 1943 Albert Hoffman intentionally ingests lysergic acid diethylamide for the first time. While cycling home along the Rhein, the psychotropic properties alter the chemist’s perception, dissolving the limit of world and laboratory. Some commemorate this trip as Bicycle Day. On this year’s Bicycle Day, Weiss Falk is pleased to open an exhibition by Noah Barker in Basel.
The year after Hoffman’s discovery, methylphenidate is synthesized at another lab in Basel. Its life as a pharmaceutical under the name Ritalin outlasts the Delysid branded LSD.
Los Alamos, twelve thousand miles from Basel, physicists consult punch cards rather than beakers. A test of their implosion method of nuclear fusion occurs on July 16, 1945. The United States documents hundreds more in the next two decades, culminating in the exo-atmospheric Operation Fishbowl. In 1962, Starfish Prime downs half the world’s satellites when it lights the Pacific sky with fluorescent light.
On the east coast of that ocean, Delysid is administered in Day-Glo- hued acid tests. One of the organizers is Stewart Brand. He writes about the malleable seating in Palo Alto and a game they play there called Spacewar.
