
Through the choreography of drawings and bodily movements,  Koester traces methods intended to access or express physical sensation  beyond cognition. In an ambiguous dark space, a mime performs the  exercises described by the infamous anthropologist
Carlos Casteneda in  his 1998 book Magical Passes.  According to Casteneda, these were secret shamanic gestures meant to  enhance one’s ability to navigate “the dark sea of awareness”. In  Tarantism, professional dancers enact an ecstatic dance which, according  to folklore, could ward off symptoms caused by the poisonous  tarantula’s bite. This frenzied movement is echoed by My Frontier is an  Endless Wall of Points, in which Koester uses stop-motion animation to  move through the mescaline drawings of Henri Michaux. Koester sees these  drawings as remains from a journey into foreign territory, an  exploration of the vast worlds on the borderline of language. Taking  text from H.P. Lovecraft’s published outlines for horror novels, Koester  has also made a text-generating program that randomly pairs syntax and  words. This piece, Numerous Incidents of Indefinite Outcome, creates a  sort of “mental theatre” infused with chance and perhapsness. So  following strange recipes, manuals, or sets of instructions with  performativity and creative license, Koester re-animates these remains  of hallucinogenic journeys.