Thanaton III

Visionary artist and polymath Paul Laffoley envisaged his 1989 painting Thanaton III as a psychotronic device. Those who encountered the work correctly – by ‘stretching out [their] arms, touching the upright hands, and staring into the eye’ – would be able to communicate with extraterrestrial beings. Thanaton III was one of a number Laffoley’s paintings to be featured in the Hayward Gallery’s 2013 exhibition The Alternative Guide to the Universe, which explored the work of self-taught artists and architects, fringe physicists and visionary inventors.