As in every year’s end, the Daily Psychedelic Video is proud to present you with list of the best psychedelic videos of the year, meticulously selected from over 400 psychedelic videos that were featured on the DPV this year. This year’s list includes some particularly awesome, mind-boggling videos, so beware!
How to watch these videos
We recommend dedicating a psychedelic evening to watching these videos on big, sharp screens, with good speakers and in a receptive, psychedelic state of mind. These videos are not for intended for standard, distracted middle-of-workday watching. Let them take you on a journey.
Japanese Donald Drumpf Commercial
Which better way to start our end of the year summary than with Mike Diva’s superb Japanese-style spin-off on the man who became the most iconic symbol for the quite disturbing events that swept world politics in 2016. Diva turns trump into a transformer style superhero that ends up blowing up the whole planet – let’s hope reality doesn’t turn out quite like that… (Original post).
OK Go – Upside Down
2016 was the year the DPV discovered OK Go. That is, the DPV already had OK Go videos on the site before 2016, but this was the year when we featured no less than five new OK Go videos, four of which made it to this list. The Upside Down video which was released this February was shot in 8 sections 27 second sections of Zero Gravity conditions, all stitched together into a one shot experience. Amazing achievement! (Original post).
Cycle – Kouhei Nakama
Kouhei Nakama’s work has already appeared in the DPV’s 2015 list of best psychedelic videos. In 2016 Nakama dazzled us again with his newest breath taking video “Cycle.” (Original post)
Coldplay – Up and Up
Coldplay’s UP and Up video, directed by Vania Heymann and Gal Muggia is a surrealist masterpiece bringing together all types of disparate elements like cars driving on the rings of Saturn, a gymnast jumping over fields bombarded by napalm bombs, a ferry docking inside a bathtub, or divers inside a washing machine. Rene Magritte couldn’t have done it better. (Original post).
Kool Keith X MF DooM – “Superhero”
Kris Merc created this music clip inspired by Afrofuturism and comic books, using Doom’s mask and iconography as a reference point “as if time and space converged around these strange, sometimes magical tableaus and we were witnessing an ascension.” (Original post).
Secret Friend – Any Day Now
A hyper-colorful, almost epileptic but highly satisfying clip to Secret Friend’s “Any Day Now.” (Original Post.)
2016 ACIP Director’s Reel
Method Studio created this 2016 reel which uses dancing avatars to showcase the visual effects used in the studio’s productions such as motion capture, procedural animations and dynamic simulations. (Original post).
Grand Temple of Nature – Psychedelic Caleidoscope Mirrorlapse of Thailand
Created from video shots made by Chris Kramer on his trip to Thailand, this video simply mirrored the footage creating an incredibly enchanting world of reflections. (Original post).
Memories of paintings – Thomas Blanchard
Thomas Blanchard’s memories of paintings delves into microscopic bubble universes and finds endless infinitesimal detail in the interactions between paint, oil, oat milk and soap. You might also want to check out his making off video. (Original post).
Hardest Mandelbrot Zoom 2016
The universe is endless, as fractals never tire from demonstrating. The latest hardcore mandelbrot zoom, the hardest of 2016 according to the creators, takes you through 750 million iterations and up to the 1099 zoom. (Original post).
Ran Djan – Alyan Vaala
Most of the work featured on the DPV is usually original work created by animators and directors. Yet sometimes one is confronted with mash-up artists that manage to weave existing psychedelic videos into a creation that’s delivers a new and mesmerizing experience. Ran Djan’s Alyan Vaala is one case in point. (Original post).
Morpha Utila – Lale Westvind
Morpha Utila is a friendly hyper-transforming ambassador from the machine world, and it’s probably the most endearing machine you’ll ever meet. (Original post).
Secret Friend – Do You – Michael Buzan
Michael Buzan who was also featured in our list last year continues to create hallucinatory hand drawn animations. His Do You video to a track by Secret Friend follows a particularly time-warping far-out story. (Original post).
OK Go – The One Moment
OK Gos music videos tend to explore a particular effect, principle or dimension of reality. In their latest release from November this year, the group stretch the dimension of time in a clip that took 4 seconds to shoot but plays for 4 incredible minutes. (Original post).
The Magician – Andy Shauf
“The magician bends the rules.” Canadian singer-songwriter Andy Shauf disappears and reappears behind the many layers of a proliferating and crumbling reality. (Original post).
Hyper Reality – Keiichi Matsuda
Keiichi Matsuda created this impressive, scary video demonstrating how an augmented reality world might work, and the way it could hijack our very grasp on reality. (Original post).
Kurzegesagt – What are you?
Kurzgesagt (In a nutshell) is a phenomenal series of animated web videos which explain ideas and concepts in various domains such as physics, sociology, psychology, neuroscience, mathematics etc. Their video on the nature of the self is refreshing and mind-boggling rendition of the ancient question: what are you? (Original post).
Pelepe – Rail
Israeli video artist Ave has been featured repeatedly on the DPV over the past couple of years. His latest project Pelepe, together with his partner K. has supplied us with perhaps his most phenomenal video, which explores the relationship between public and artist, present moment and durable work, love and fear.(Original post).
Some forgotten 2015 and 2014 gems
While we try our best, we can’t help but miss some of the fresh psychedelic videos out there on the web, and sometimes these get featured on the site a year or two after their release. So, same as every year, here are some of the best videos of 2014 which we missed in last year’s list.
Getter – Head Splitter (2015)
San Jose DJ Tanner Pettula has released two melting-point psychedelic videos in the past year. If you liked this one you might also enjoy his sequel video to the toxic hamburger tails rip and dip. (Original post).
Freaky Flowers 2 (2015)
The second installation in the Freaky Flowers series takes a different perspective to the flower time-lapse genre, focusing on the wilting flowers, rather than the flowering one, and the results turns out to be no less spectacular. (Original post).
Kanahebi – Slowly Rising (2015)
Japanese director Hideaki Inaba created this spectacular video showing mysterious underwater creatures performing their immaculate dances. (Original Post)
Shabazz Palaces – Forerunner Foray (2015)
Animator Chad Van Gaalen created this kicking hand-drawn animation to Shabazz Palaces’ Forerunner Foray. (Original Post).
OK Go – I won’t let you down (2014)
Of all the OK Go videos to be featured on the DPV thus far, this one is probably the craziest of all. Shot in double speed, with hundreds of Japanese performers on Honda UNI-CUB’s (Honda sponsored the making of the video) it defies belief. However, what you are about to see is real, even the most incredible patterns which emerge by the end of the clip. (Original post).
Tropical Bleyage – Mala (2014)
Excerpts from indigenously themed films such as Apocalyptico and Baraka stitched together with a track from Tropical Bleyage’s EP Mala create an immersive and enchanting experience of penetrating a mysterious jungle world. (Original post).
OK Go – The writing on the wall (2014)
Ok Go’s The Writing on the Wall is a phenomenal masterpiece of disorienting optical illusions. (Original post).
If you liked this post you might want to check our best of year lists from previous years.
The Best psychedelic videos of 2015
The best psychedelic videos of 2014
The best psychedelic videos of 2013
The best psychedelic videos of 2012
The Daily Psychedelic Video 