Operation Midnight Climax was a covert CIA project conducted in the 1950s and 1960s as part of MKULTRA, the agency’s secret research into mind control, interrogation and psychoactive drugs. The CIA established hidden safe houses in cities including San Francisco and New York, where sex workers were paid to lure unsuspecting men inside. The men were secretly given LSD or other substances without their knowledge or consent, while CIA agents observed their behaviour through two-way mirrors and hidden surveillance equipment.

The experiments were intended to study how drugs, sex, stress and unfamiliar environments could affect judgement, inhibition and suggestibility. Many subjects never knew they had been part of an experiment. The program involved serious ethical abuses, including non-consensual drugging and surveillance. Midnight Climax later became one of the most notorious examples of MKULTRA after details of the CIA’s activities were exposed during investigations in the 1970s.

This piece was produced for the BEYOND THE VEIL curation by Rocketgirl for exhibition at the CANAL STREET SHOW, 3rd of SEPTEMBER, NEW YORK CITY, 2026