In Actualization Machine, Nina Hartmann draws on declassified CIA documents and Cold War parapsychological research — MKUltra, the Stargate Project, Soviet psychic operatives — to construct shaped encaustic panels, resin sculptures, and lightboxes that operate as diagrammatic compositions across individual works. The resulting pieces sit at the intersection of mysticism, magic, and institutional power, conceived as deliberate destabilizations of presumed knowledge systems. Hartmann uses this focused Cold War history as an entry point into a broader inquiry: how humans are shaped daily by information, aesthetics, symbolism, and context.
