Every diver knows that if you dive deeper than about 30 Meters, your senses are clouded by Nitrogen (inert gas) narcosis. It’s an odd effect which can become quite dangerous at depths way below the recreational depth limit of 40 meters. At that point, the narcosis is more severe, and the diving environment (deeper) is more serious – it’s not a good idea to be dazed when doing potentially dangerous underwater exploration. At 30 meters, the depth visited during the Advanced Open Water Course, the narcosis is not dangerous, but noticeable. Usually the diving student is made aware of the level of narcosis he is experiencing by letting him do some simple arithmetic, first at the surface, and then at depth again. Even though divers might initially not be aware that they are narked, the poor performance – either answering the math question incorrectly, or very slowly, shows him that he is in fact mentally affected by the high pressure.
That’s how it’s normally done. We are of course more sophisticated than that.
Recently, Advanced student Andre Whye and I decided that we would rather asses the change in Andre’s artistic skills underwater. Andre would draw a self-portrait on the surface, and then again underwater, 30 m deep, narcosis-affected:
The artwork is quite good, reminiscent of a Jean-Michel Basquiat. Basquiat was a member of Andy Warhol’s circle of artist friends and known for his high intensity visual art. Andre’s drawing is definitely buzzing with energy, and quite provocative. It’s not concerning itself with reactionary realism. It says: I’m a diver, and I’m here to dive, not to waste time fiddling with the details of this self-portrait.
What is the difference between the surface and the narced version?
At 30 m, the self-portrait is even wilder, and even less boring-realistic than the surface version. The hair is more agitated and longer. The eye brows are not symmetrical anymore, and the mouth is a maelstrom of crazy ellipsoids. Nitrogen narcosis made the man a better, more risk-taking artist, in the opinion of this critic.
