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❖ Julian Chehirian
Bio

Julian Chehirian is a historian of science and artist working on the history of the mind sciences.

◀How to Fail at Laboratory Work

How to Fail at Laboratory Work

Pioneer Works, New York City
2026

How to Fail at Laboratory Work — installation view

How to Fail at Laboratory Work (2026) is work in progress during a Pioneer Works residency, in collaboration with D. Graham Burnett. The multimedia installation excavates the origins of attention research through the speculative reconstruction of an 1890s laboratory for experimental psychology. Choreographing psychoacoustic apparatuses, tuning forks, oscillators, tachistoscopes, and other instruments, the installation interrogates the modern techno-scientific regime of attention and unfurls its slicing and dicing of human experience.

Credits

  • Artist — Julian Chehirian
  • Collaborating Artist — D. Graham Burnett
  • Sound Cage Production — Jason Ressler
  • Residency — Pioneer Works, NYC

Supported by the Strother School of Radical Attention and the Institute for Sustained Attention.

Titchener scan
Scanned page from a Titchener manual, questions on mental imagery and attention, overlaid by a torn second scan.
On hearing
Archival photograph of a laboratory bench of acoustic apparatus — organ pipes, tuning forks and resonators.
Perception of space
Archival photograph of apparatus for experiments on the perception of space, with a chair and a large wire hoop.
Laboratory floor plan
Floor plan of a psychological laboratory, its rooms labelled Optics, Acoustics, Haptics, Dark Room and Reaction Room.