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TechGnosis

The work of Erik Davis

Erik Davis is an American writer, scholar, journalist, and public speaker whose writings range from rock criticism to cultural analysis to esoteric explorations of California’s history.

I’ve been publishing stuff for over three decades, and most of it—with the exception of my books—resides on this site, which I have maintained through various iterations since the late 1990s. With Burning Shore now disseminating my fresher communiqués, Techgnosis.com acts more than ever as an archive of my work, including lectures, interviews, personal reflections, and almost a decade of the Expanding Mind podcast. Like Techgnosis itself, still in print and more relevant than ever, my stuff combines deep research with vivid writing and oracular aims that resonate through the years. For this revamped trans-temporal site, I and my team have introduced more robust searching and cross-linking of materials, as well as a roll-the-dice feature, which will hopefully allow for richer, more entertaining, and more synchronistic wanders through this wunderkammer.  — Erik

  • Books

    Blotter

    The Untold Story of an Acid Medium

    The Untold Story of an Acid Medium

    Blotter by Erik Davis is the first comprehensive written account of the history, art, and design of LSD blotter paper, the iconic drug delivery device that will perhaps forever be linked to underground psychedelic culture and contemporary street art. Created in collaboration with Mark McCloud’s Institute of Illegal Images, the world’s largest archive of blotter art, Davis’s boldly illustrated exhibition treats his outsider subject with the serious, art-historical respect it deserves...

A Random Selection

Democratic Surround
Expanding Mind Podcast
Democratic Surround
Expanding Mind

Tao Lin Trips
Expanding Mind Podcast
Tao Lin Trips
Expanding Mind

Boom Festival 2008
Subcultures
Boom Festival 2008
Dancing on liminal ground

Surf(ac)ing Interstices
Media
Surf(ac)ing Interstices
War Machine podcast #8

Deleuze & Guattari’s What is Philosophy?
Mind and Philosophy
7 min
Deleuze & Guattari’s What is Philosophy?
D&G's "virtual philosophy"

The Matrix Way of Knowledge
Moving Pictures
9 min
The Matrix Way of Knowledge
The Philosophy of the Matrix

Snakes & Ladders
Religions and Spirits
18 min
Snakes & Ladders
The spiritual tension between immanence and transcendence

The Atmosphere of Heaven
Articles and Essays
The Atmosphere of Heaven
The universe is made of thoughts