Yellow Magic Orchestra had a great sense for the psychedelic dimension in the electronic dreams of the late 70’s and early 80’s. And the clip for the track computer games has it all: early computer games, electronically generated images, Kraftwerk and traditional symbols in one mind-blowing trip (to the left).
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Beauty in Synthesis: the Art of Laurie Spiegel
20 MarWhen asked why she turned to digital synthesizers and software engineering after working with analog systems for a long time, American composer Laurie Spiegel answered that she was looking for a way to apply memory and logic to the freedom that the analog synthesizers gave her. A piece of paper as a composers tool provides a kind of memory that is missing in the old analog means of electronic music making. On the other hand you have control over the actual sound production when working with analog synthesizers. You can experiment with the results of your decisions in way that was impossible before. Computers and digital synthesizers now offer you the same degree of independence for experimentation while providing facilities for the use of memory and logical manipulation in the process of composition.
Mirages by Sabrina Rattlé
13 MarMusic by Le Révélateur.
A breathtakingly beautiful exploration of the geometries of light and color beyond the limitations of space.
Sabrina Rattlé is a Canadian exerimental film maker and Mirages is a collaboration with the Canadian musician Le Révélateur. While watching the film one feels that the sound is really woven into the images.
epic psychedelic battles of pong
6 MarPong is a classic in the history of video games. While there might not be much to see, everyone will recognize it instantly.
Now Plasma Pong adds a little twist to the familiar and classic Atari design by letting you manipulate the trajectory of the ball through the plasma surrounding it.
Another great thing about the game is that it includes a sandbox mode where you can just play around with the real-time fluid and particle effects for the joy of it.
You can download the game for free (there is also a mac version).
“taking drugs to make music to take drugs to” – psychedelia in the 80’s and early 90’s with Spacemen 3
20 FebWhile we witness a little return of interest towards psychedelic culture since a few years, it was quite rare that popular subculture would refer to psychedelia in those bleak mid 80’s (at least before rave would bring back rainbows, bubbles and acid). Still a few groups like Psychic TV and Spacemen 3 kept the endless trance inducing jams and the quest for musical (et al.) mind exploration going.
Psychedelic Tableaus: “Book of Days” by Meredith Monk and “Power” by Kanye West
13 FebWhen I first saw the video to Power by Kanye West something about it struck me as surprisingly psychedelic. But I could not really put my finger on it: was it the heavy and over the top symbolism, was it the kaleidoscopic yet very straight sensual overload or was it just the idea of a painting slowly beginning to move and expand?
I lost track of this intuition until I just reacently saw this excerpt from Book of Days by Meredith Monk. And there it was again..
Psychedelic Independent Gaming: The Devil’s Tuning Fork
6 FebYou can download the game for free here.
“I wish I could talk in technicolor…”
30 JanThis is footage of an experiment from around 1956. A dose of LSD25 is given to a “normal” woman. She is interviewed for the experiment by Dr. Sidney Cohen just before taking the LSD and also while she experiences its effects.
There are so many things remarkable about this! But see for yourself…
so intense: double rainbow high on autotune with the Gregory Brothers
23 JanMy question to you today is: can the youtube hive mind trip? or: whose hallucination is this?
V stands for..: Bert Brecht had his V-fx (distancing effects). Originally intended to make you think all the way “across” the distance set by the “Verfremdung” (estrangement), it seems by today’s standards you have to put in lots and lots of V’s to get things at least a little bit real.
Exquisite corpse: The surrealists had automatic writing. It was a bit uncanny to realize that language was making sense while you did not intend to. Who is making sense here? And when language can make sense without your intention, who did just say that, or: what exactly is dependent on your intention? Thoughts like that can easily become psychosis inducing.
So before the internet, before the notion of the hive mind the question of superindividuals was there, too. Social technologies like language can be conceived as collective unconscious mind. So, why shouldn’t it trip?
“I believe that one day we could have an accidental singer on top of the charts” The Gregory Brothers gave us “accidental singing”. What a nice term!
Sleeping Beauty In meta-musicals like Singing in the Rain people started dancing in the middle of everyday situations. A rhythm surfaced from a silly walk and the dance – it seemed – just followed naturally. By the act of movies like Singing in the rain the world was enriched with virtual dance waiting to be released from the rhythms surrounding us. Now our world has been enriched by a song sleeping in every news flash, voice or video post, in virtually all recorded language, waiting to be kissed awake by autotune.
Maybe V-effect has been translated to virtualizing effect without anyone intending, maybe the rainbow has never been so bright, so vivid, so intense, maybe one of the most familiar things today is living in a post-psychedelic culture.
