The shaman’s coat is a fundamental tool for the journey to the other world, which affords encoun- ters with other states of consciousness, entities, realities, and rules. The shaman’s helping spirit is a supporting entity accompanying the journey.
They are assisting the traveler with orientation, navigation and defensive support through other dimensions, as this journey into unknown realms is considered very dangerous. Traditionally its repre- sentaion is painted or sewn onto the coat.
This work interprets today’s western technologies, like space exploration and the imagining of science fiction in reference to mythological tools and cos- mologies from indigenous cultures. The contem- porary western helping spirit appears in disguise of technology printed onto a cowhide. In the process, Schönfeld is exploring the mechanistic world view since the enlightenment in the western hemisphere and alluding to the athropologist Bruno Latour and his book ‚We have never been modern‘.