AYAHUASCA AND THE ART OF CHILD LABOR

Artemio is a Mexican artist who makes pretty mandalas out of guns and machetes and bullets. Some of them are huge and made of neon and some are small tiles that just look like random patterns until you get close and go "ooohhhhh." Right now he's got a show at our friend's gallery in Bogota, Colombia, so we decided to call him up. Turns out he was in the Amazon researching his next project which seems to involve drinking ayahuasca and channeling Fitzcarraldo. We were going to talk to him about his art exhibit, and the inherent violence of concentricity in the Post-Cubist gesamtkunstzeit, but versed as we are in ayahuascan affairs, we ignored his exhibit and instead prodded him about the crazy shit he'd been seeing. Vice: Where are you right now?
Artemio: [laughs] In the Amazon, in the middle of a lake.

How do you have cell reception in the middle of the freaking Amazon?
It's a tragedy. "I'm in a boat in the meedle of the reevur." But it's a thing that's very important for my life right now, because I'm working on a new project.

Do tell.
Well, the project I wanted to work on was like a remake of Fitzcarraldo but I wanted to do it with a juxtaposition between Lord of the Flies and Fitzcarraldo.

With rabid little boys?
Yeah. Kids. I've come to the Amazon twice and I'm not sure where the project's going to end up relative to my original plan. The jungle is changing what I want. Being here is like installing a new operating system for me.

What?
It's like how, now that the leopard is out--

What?!
You know, the Mac… the new operating system.

Oh! Right, yeah, OK. So the jungle is like Leopard?
Coming to the jungle is like getting that installed in my head.

How does ayahuasca fit in with that?
It's part of the new operating system.

I heard you have to pretty much do an internship with a shaman to even get near the stuff.
I've done ayahuasca before with this shaman. The first time we were talking and then we drank, then I did the diet and I had to do various things, like think about the questions I had. I had to talk to him about why I wanted to do ayahuasca, if it was just for the experience or if I needed to do a sort of interal cleansing. Taking ayahuasca is a personal investigation. It's like going to psychoanalysis. I think the plant finds you. I've heard about it for a long time and I was always curious and all of a sudden I was here and could do it and I did. It's been a few months of reflection and internal work. And it's changing, like, before I wanted to build the ship [from Fitzcarraldo] with a bunch of kids and I wanted to do like a game with them, the remake of the movie. And now I don't think it's going there. The last time I did ayahuasca I got all worried.

About the Fitzcarraldo thing?
No, about life! About everything! So I decided it was time to do another trip with the same shaman and he had said after I took it the first time that I should come back. And soon.

Why, what'd you see?
I saw parts of Mexico and incredible colors. And then I saw animals that don't exist, like a cross between insects and lions. And then I started to see people and I talked to them.

People you knew, or not?
Yes, people I know. I had like an "ex-girlfriends convention" basically. I saw them and it was super good, because I felt like I was liberating myself from my issues. It felt like we had conversations we needed to have. And I saw a brother of mine who died two hours after being born. I was 13 at the time he died.

How old was he when you saw him? Did he grow in the afterlife?
He was light. He was an affectionate presence. It was beautiful. That trip to the Amazon was a search for another kind of psychoanalysis.

Sounds awesome. So, you're just using your Amazon trip as an excuse to clean the skeletons out of your closet, then?
It also has to do with my art project. I guess it's not totally Fitzcarraldo--it's more about moving something unwanted, moving a boat over a mountain to get to leave. We'll see.

Artemio did ayahuasca again and we called him a few days later to see where his work was heading.

So, you've taken ayahuasca for a second time… how was it?
What should I tell you? It's, like, incredible. It's incredible. I'm seriously debating taking it again today.

Why wouldn't you?
It was incredible.

Right. Did you see those weird half-insect half-lion animals again?
A little, but now it was more about me. I had jaguar skin and then I turned into a hummingbird. And I was… well, everything was super intense. A lot of visions. A lot. Like, really, really, really intense.

So, were you just seeing jungle things or were there things from city life?
No, I asked things specific things I wanted answer to and the visions were about that. It was a lot more put together than last time. This time I didn't see as many people form my life. Geometric shapes and animals. And people, again, too. And I saw a lot of amazing trees, and some waterfalls, but I don't know where they are.

Are they real?
I hope so! I don't know.

Did you get answers to your life questions?
Yes, ah, well, more or less. Well, I told you I was a hummingbird and a jaguar and I was with people. I was with three people. People I don't know at all. I talked to one of them because she was part of my question. Basically, the question was "What path do I follow?" and the answer was her. It was like this is what's next.

So, what's next is a lot of ladies?
Not like that, it was really intense. They were all visions. I still don't understand it. But I did see this woman I don't know at all.

You're gonna get laid.
I don't know, but I think so. The only thing that worries me is that she's going to rearrange my house. So it was a lot more put together than the first night I did it. And it was a lot more abstract than the last one. Last time it was a lot of concrete conversations with people, this time it was like, really, really, really, REALLY abstract. All the visions that appeared were presented to me as possibilities. Because since I asked an abstract question I got an abstract answer, but I think they were saying, like, this is what can happen if you want.

Right. So what did the shaman tell you about your trip?
The shaman just told me that I had to be patient and not get scared.

Now do you have a better idea about the Fizcarraldo thing?
Not yet. I found that I remembered, like, that, well, I'm working on that. I think that… no. No. OK. That project is still undefined. I didn't find out where to take it but I know I'll find out soon and it will be fine. But this time, I didn't get it.

Seems like you should drink some magic vine juice again, then, to figure it out.
Yeah. I'm going back in October, I think.