A Norewegian walk-through installation made of 8,064 individual points of light. Must be beautiful to trip in.
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Shugo Tokumaru “Katachi”
4 MayThis video was made from 2000 silhouettes extracted from PVC plates using a computer-controlled cutter. Beautiful.
(Link: 6dmind. Thanks!)
Psychedelic Oldies – Pre-1945 hallucinogenic videos
27 AprFor its 3rd birthday the DPV is featuring a series of psychedelic videos specials which will run between the 22 and the 28 of April 2013. Stay tuned for more of our psychedelic specials.
It is surprising how many of the earliest films contained psychedelic elements. In the field of animation especially one finds not only many psychedelically styled videos, but even 1920s videos focusing on the mind-altering effects of drugs. And while these films don’t feature the fancy CGI effects of today’s videos, they have a special kind of charm.
Emil Cohl – Fantasmagorie (1908)
“Fantasmagorie” by French caricaturist and animator Emil Cohl,“the father of animated cartoon”, is considered by film historians to be the first animated cartoon.
Watching Fantasmagorie today, the inherently psychedelic character of animation becomes even clearer. The film make me think about how it must have been for the first viewers of this video, one of the earliest of animations, when they watched it more than a hundred years ago. How did they react to the fantastical world on the screen in which things appear out of nowhere, and bottles of wine are transformed into flowers? Interestingly, it is right after our hero, who removes many hats worn by the lady in the front, arrives at a smaller hat, which makes the woman look like a mushroom (0:29), that weird things start happening…
Emil Cohl – Hasher’s Delirium (1910)
Two years after Fantasmagorie, the topic of intoxication becomes explicit in another video by Cohl titled “Hasher’s Delirium”. In this video our hero, who drinks wine and absinthe in a restaurant, enters into various states of delusion. The psychedelic transformations of objects reach new levels here.
Walter Ruttman – “Das Wunder” – Kantorowicz liquor commercial (1922)
This highly amusing early Kantorowicz liquor commercial was created by experimental film maker Walter Ruttmann at a time when alcohol was already illegal in the US. The Kantorowicz liquor is created by a magician who uses the basic elements of the universe. Later the liquor performs the impressing feat of appeasing the angry and fighting men, eventually even making them kiss each other. No wonder the film is called “The Wonder”…
Pat Sullivan – Felix the cat – Felix dines and pines (1926) (Trippy sequence starts at 4:13)
Silent era’s Felix the cat went on occasional and sometimes unintended hallucinatory trips. In this first video from 1926 Felix eats some food from the garbage and consequently enters a long and highly trippy hallucination.
Pat Sullivan – Felix the Cat – Woos Whoope (1928)
In this video from 1928, Felix drinks too much in Whoopee Club and enters into a state of delirium full of intimidating hallucinations.
Max Fleischer – Betty Boop Nitrous Oxide film (1934) (Trippy sequence starts at 4:00)
American animator Max Fleischer created a number of drug-related videos, some of which were already featured in the post about Terence McKenna’s taste for psychedelic animations.
Still one has to have a Fleischer video in a post about psychedelic oldies. Here is one my favorites. His nitrous oxide video… The funny trippy part starts at around 4:00)
Oskar Fischinger – Allegretto (1936)
German-American abstract-animator Oskar Fischinger had to fight for his film “Allegretto”. The video which was created by Fischinger in 1936 in synchronization with a tune by Ralph Rainger, was altered by Paramount Pictures who changed the Technicolor imagery to B&W, and intercut the abstract images with live action scenes. Fischinger eventually asked to be let out of his contract, and completed the film by himself in a way which suited his vision. The colorful result, which remains visually engaging even today, is considered “one of the most-screened and successful films of visual music’s history.”
Walt Disney – Fantasia (1940) (Trippy sequence starts at 5:00)
Disney’s Fantasia (1940) was an unprecedented orgy of colorful splashes, and colorful rainbows.
The whole film is psychedelic in style, but the sequence above is particularly distinguished for its synesthetic qualities.
The name “Fantasia” in itself alluded to a fantastic other-worldly land, perhaps the kind which can be discovered through the ingestion of substances from a chemical family which was known at the time as the “Phantastica”.
This might be a bit farfetched, but maybe not. Acording to Peter Stafford’s “Psychedelic Encyclopedia” the chief visualist for Disney’s Fantasia (1940) participated in the mescaline experiments conducted in Germany by Kurt Beringer in the 1920′s. Artist Paul Laffoley claims that Disney himself experimented with Mescaline “On a regular basis” during his stay in Germany in the 1930′s. Many other theories regarding the relations between Disney and psychedelics exist, and you can find out about some of them here in this fascinating article.
Walt Disney – Dumbo the flying elephant (1941)
A year after Fantasia, Disney released Dumbo the Flying Elephant. In it Dumbo starts drinking the contents of a bucket, following which he begins to hallucinate highly peculiar visions, which you can see in the scene above.
The funniest psychedelic videos collection
22 Apr
For its 3rd birthday the DPV is featuring a series of psychedelic videos specials which will run between the 22 and the 28 of April. Stay tuned for more of our psychedelic specials.
One of the things I like best about the psychedelic experience is humor. On a psychedelic trip, everyday situations can suddenly change their meaning in ways that make them hilarious. This can happen when normal stuff suddenly appears very weird, or when you find new and surprising meaning to ordinary occurrences. It can happen when one goes on a train of thoughts and arrives to some awesomely far out mental places, or when you suddenly realize that you and your friends look very weird, or are behaving in a very weird way. Regaining perspective on yourself can be exceedingly funny. Psychedelic humor, at its highest forms, can be a realization of the inherently humorous aspect of existence itself, a sort of metaphysical-humor state of mind cherished by some of the world’s religious traditions, like Zen Buddhism.
The psychedelic humor videos below combine the different elements of psychedelic humor described above in ways that I find hilarious. Here are my psychedelic humor favorites.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas – The Hotel Scene
The Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas hotel scene, is one of the classic psychedelic comedy scenes in cinema. The scene makes use of a distinct kind of psychedelic humor where the joke lies in the gap between reality as it is perceived by the tripped-out protagonist and the actual ‘objective’ reality as it is captured by the camera/others. (See here for another example of this kind psychedelic humor, featuring Jack Black).
Louis CK Animation
“In animation you can do anything” is the premise of this video by Louis CK, where the comedian uses the force of animation to become a kind of superhero. For other writers it would probably just mean flying in the air or fighting huge monsters, but Louis CK, being Louis CK, uses this new found power in order to very thoroughly work out his feelings of bitterness towards his father and infest him with guilt “which will make him age 50 years in a day”…
Pikachu on Acid and the stoned British soldiers
Pikachu goes on an extended acid-trip after being attacked with acid by another Pokémon. This is the proof that the American and British armies had the right idea when they experimented with LSD as a battlefield incapacitating weapon, which was an hilarious occasion in itself.
This is how we trip – The Good Neighbor
Dennis and his friends dose on DXM (cough suppressant) and go into time-portals while Dennis’s mother knocks on the door demanding an explanation. An hilarious video-portrait of a lively fucked-up bunch of suburban tripsters by the “Good Neighbor” group.
Two renegade cops take “memory medicine”
Two renegade cops is a brilliant and pretty psychedelic 13 episode 70’s style YouTube comedy show. In the 5th episode Brick and Steel go on a visit to the past, after smoking some “memory medicine” given to them by their hippie friend.
Arise – Church of the Subgenius
The instructions part for the video tape by the Church of the Sub Genius is an exceedingly deranged, far out video-instructions manual created by a demented video director. The result is unbelievable and hilarious.
Charlie the Unicorn
Grumpy unicorn Charlie, who just wanted to quietly watch TV, is continuously harassed by two particularly weird unicorns who take him on a far out trip to the banana king who teaches Charlie a peculiar lesson about life.
Musicotherapie
The highly stressed ape psychiatrist of an animal’s hospital mental ward is driven to madness by the never ending noises created by his annoyingly musical patients. Strangely, following the advice of the Banana King from the video above, doesn’t help either…
The stoned ape theory
Mckenna’s stoned ape theory, mixed together with elements from Kubrick’s 2001: Space Odyssey and rendered to extreme by animation, makes for a particularly hilarious journey into the psychedelic roots of human civilization.
The Mighty Boosh & Noel Fielding’s Luxury Comedy
“Television needs a madman! I want the show to be psychedelic and beautiful but have charm and personality. If Dali made a show hopefully it would look like this” said Noel Fielding about his television work.
Fielding gained fame and acclaim with his highly successful show The Mighty Boosh, created together with Julian Barratt. He later embarked on a solo career, launching the Noel Fielding’s Luxury Comedy show.
Both shows are hilarious, surreal, mystical, and highly psychedelic, featuring many magical plots, shamans, drug dealers, a talking gorilla and variety of other bizarre characters.
Many of the episodes of both shows are available to watch on YouTube, and if you are a fan of psychedelic comedy, you’ve got to watch at least a few episodes. You won’t regret it.
Cranky Yankers – Cough syrup
Cranky Yanker’s Ed calls the pharmacy and asks for some cough syrup. Which kind?
“the happy kind”, “the kind that makes you sleepy”. The ensuing conversation is accompanied by his hallucination as he goes into a cough syrup Neverland.
Story from North-America
The “Story from North America” is beautifully animated video with which combines vivid images, evocative moral issues and a funny song to create a precious 4 minute lesson about the value of life.
Terence McKenna – The Message
20 AprAs valuable a message as you’ll ever hear. A great combination of words and visuals.
Are these videos psychedelic or just bizarre?
15 Apr
I have a friend who always sends me video links saying “You’ve got to watch this video! It’s hyper-psychedelic”.
Then, when I watch the videos, they just seem bizarre.
We have endless quarrels about this: He say’s it’s psychedelic. I say it’s just bizarre.
Then he says: You need to stop making this anachronistic dichotomy between bizarre and psychedelics.
Maybe, I’m wrong. I mean, I’m not very sure, and I admit the boundaries between psychedelic videos and bizarre ones can get blurry.
So what do you think? Are these videos psychedelic or just plain bizarre?
Lior Frenkel – Orchestral Hollywood Trailer
13 AprA dramatic psychedelic vibe in the this video done to a track by composer Lior Frenkel.
Some songs from The Mighty Boosh
6 AprThe Mighty Boosh is an hilarious, surreal, mystical and highly psychedelic BBC comedy show created by Julian Barrat and Noel Fielding. Besides featuring a talking gorilla, the show’s cast of characters also includes a variety of shamans and drug dealers.
Somewhat surprisingly perhaps, The Mighty Boosh, has not only gained a cult status, but also attracted massive following with over one million people watching the first episode of the show’s third season.
Most of the episodes are available to watch on YouTube, and if you are a fan of psychedelic comedy, you’ve got to watch at least a few episodes. You won’t regret it.
Here is one of the classic episodes from the series, The Legend of Old Gregg:
The Daily Psychedelic Video 