Orgone Accumulator
Annie Ratti
(2015)
An orgone accumulator is any device built in a certain way to concentrate atmospheric orgone energy for medical or experimental purposes. Most accumulators are constructed according to the principles first established by Wilhelm Reich in the late 1930s and early 1940s that iron or steel attracts and repels the orgone and that electrical insulators, organic materials, attract and hold the orgone. Annie Ratti constructed this accumulator in 2015 and in doing so entered into a long lineage of artists to have either referred to or constructed the accumulator. Another one of the artists featured in this exhibition is Kenneth White who has also constructed an accumulator. His experiences of the accumulator are detailed in the essay which is presented as a poster in the exhibition space.