Every Pill I Took: 2000 - 2001

Every Pill I Took: 2000–2001 is a striking visual archive of ecstasy culture at the turn of the millennium. Created by nightlife photographer Michael Lorenzini, this book documents the design, texture, and branding of the pills he personally took during two formative years in New York's underground club and rave scenes.

Shot on slide film with an extreme macro lens, these jewel-like tablets are revealed in incredible detail—tiny capsules of desire, rebellion, and risk. Each pill’s design reflects a time when ecstasy was as much a visual language as a chemical one, with logos borrowed from the mainstream—Nike, Mitsubishi, Apple—transformed into subcultural markers of quality and identity.

More than a drug memoir, this is a document of a specific visual moment in youth and rave culture. Cultural critic Carlo McCormick calls the aesthetic “a collapse of the space between subversive youth culture and mainstream consumption,” and Lorenzini’s work captures that collapse with clarity and curiosity.