LOOKING FOR MUSHROOMS is composed primarily of footage shot by Conner in San Francisco in the late 1950s, and footage filmed in rural Mexico in 1961-62 (while he and his wife, Jean Conner, were living in Mexico City), and includes the rare soundtrack; “Tomorrow Never Knows”, organized with the Beatles. LOOKING FOR MUSHROOMS is an editing tour-de-force with brilliant color and pulsing rhythm. According to Art Historian, Johanna Gosse, “Whereas earlier versions of the film was silent and played on a loop, in 1967 Conner added the psychedelic rock ’n’ roll soundtrack by the Beatles. The lyrics to the song were famously inspired by Leary, Ralph Metzner and Richard Alpert’s 1964 book The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, which advised those under the influence of psychedelics to ‘turn off your mind, relax, float downstream.’ Arguably among his most hypnotic and visually arresting films."
