Curators in Conversation: The "Thoughtography" of Ted Serios

Join IMC Director Paul Roth and Emily Hauver, Guest Curator of Mind’s Eye: The Psychic Photographs of Ted Serios, for a virtual talk exploring the photographic process of Ted Serios, a Chicago bellhop who claimed he could capture his thoughts on film.

About the exhibition
Mind’s Eye: The Psychic Photographs of Ted Serios
January 25–April 1, 2023
The Image Centre, University Gallery
Guest Curator: Emily Hauver, Curator of Exhibitions, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)

Between 1964 and 1967, American psychiatrist Dr. Jule Eisenbud conducted experiments with Ted Serios, a man from Chicago with the purported ability to psychically transfer his thoughts onto Polaroid film in a process he named “thoughtography.” Questioning the limits of the human psyche, the supposed objectivity of photography, and notions of scientific neutrality, Mind’s Eye presents a selection of Serios’ mysterious photographs, along with ephemera and experimental data from the Jule Eisenbud Collection on Ted Serios and Thoughtographic Photography, a highlight of the Special Collections at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Organized in collaboration with the Albin O. Kuhn Library and Gallery, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), United States.