Stefan Marinov’s Papers

Curatorial intervention / Commissioned work

Dates
21.9.–15.10.2023

Location
Villa Perpetuum Mobile
Graz

Part of
Villa Perpetuum Mobile

Production specifics
Courtesy of Herwig G. Höller

When Stefan Marinov committed suicide in 1997, he left behind an extensive body of work and a massive correspondence, part of which Herwig G. Höller, then a student of Slavic studies, retrieved and kept. As his papers show, Marinov’s dissent from post-Einsteinian physics began while he was still working in Bulgaria, where he was admitted to a psychiatric ward because of his experiments. A consummate writer of petitions and complaints, Marinov bombarded journals with contributions and wrote long responses to every rejection, eventually self-publishing books in the form of samizdat. In his enthusiasm for free energy, he became a key advocate for the spiritual community Methernitha and their Testatika machine, which he thought was a genuine perpetuum mobile. Some of Marinov’s supporters believed that his death was not a suicide, but an attempt to erase a legitimate source of free energy.

Retrospective
Retrospective
Retrospective