controlcube

[controlcube]

Week 12

So far in this course, one thing I feel the most is that my skill and mind as an artist has begun to grow. The experience in the course has greatly inspired and motivated me to keep creating. Espeically from Shaun and Darrin, I have learned a lot on how to handle the delivery of a piece of work. And that is to say on how to make a good piece of work. And this is something I feel that I really need for the future progress. 

Sometimes I know I would go too far in my creating process, and the advice is really needed. I would like to thank again for the dedication Shaun and Darrin and my dear classmates given to the course. Have a great summer!

[controlcube]

Week 11

This week, I have reviewed the project and did the final touches. The mouth tunnel scenes are recolored into the hallucination color (2009), which consists of bright RGB mainly. 

Inspirations drew in this week is from Travis Scott’s INTERSTELLAR ft. Frank Ocean, Hans Zimmer. This is a remake piece. The new version has added new synth, drums and strings. The instrumental part for the song is beautiful. The string creates a spatial hearing experience of might, power and greatness while the tender synth is singing me to sleep like a lullaby. These seemingly contrasting factors however triggered me into a confused but still comfortable state of mind. And this experience is much like that of hallucination. 

Bibliography:

Madill SA, Lascaratos G, Arden GB, ffytche DH. Perceived color of hallucinations in the Charles Bonnet Syndrome is related to residual color contrast sensitivity. J Neuroophthalmol. 2009 Sep;29(3):192-6. doi: 10.1097/WNO.0b013e3181b1b2bf. PMID: 19726940.

Goldzieher, M., Andrews, S., & Harris, I. (2016). Two scenes or not two scenes: The effects of stimulus repetition and view-similarity on scene categorization from brief displays. Memory & Cognition, 45(1), 49-62. doi: 10.3758/s13421-016-0640-9

Mavromatis (1987), p. 81

Shaham, I. (2013). The Structure of Repetition in the Cinema: Three Hollywood Genres. Poetics Today, 34(4), 437-518. doi: 10.1215/03335372-2389578

Staff. "The 25 Best Dream Pop Albums of All Time". Paste. Retrieved 29 May 2021.

[controlcube]

Week 10

Work In Progress

This week I have finished the first draft of the project. While working on the first draft, I figured that I put the work’s climax on the second half part where the scenes in the first half evolves in shape, form, and color. The most used effect would be Kaleidscope.

Through the feedback session, I am advised that scenes in the second half part should pre-appear in the first half part. This way, viewers could make more sense of the entire video so that they wouldn’t be confused when the second half part suddenly hits the audience with new scenes. Also, Shaun suggests that the second part could include an AI speech inspired by Radiohead’s Fitter Happier. This lies in line with the traits about Hypnagogic sonically. 

Inspiration

This week, I have shift my focus on the 80s&90s music work finding the clues about hypnagogic. So I found several pieces. One of the represntative is Cocteau Twins. 

They are categorized as dream pop. The characteristics of dream pop are “ emphasize[ing] mood and sonics over lyrics”, “breathy vocals, the use of guitar effects, and a densely produced sound, with "nebulous, distorted guitars" paired with "murmured vocals sometimes completely smudged into a wall of noise." The vagueness in the lyrics and emphasis on the musicality matches to my research on the sense of hypnagogia. 

I also find the visual style of Cocteau Twins is full of video laying on one another and they merge together as a whole scene. As I recall from the research I’ve done about visual traits of hypnagogia, the visual mostly has no narrative quality but random image transitions. Which is the method I have applied to my second half part.

Bibliography

Goldzieher, M., Andrews, S., & Harris, I. (2016). Two scenes or not two scenes: The effects of stimulus repetition and view-similarity on scene categorization from brief displays. Memory & Cognition, 45(1), 49-62. doi: 10.3758/s13421-016-0640-9

Mavromatis (1987), p. 81 

 Shaham, I. (2013). The Structure of Repetition in the Cinema: Three Hollywood Genres. Poetics Today, 34(4), 437-518. doi: 10.1215/03335372-2389578

Staff. "The 25 Best Dream Pop Albums of All Time". Paste. Retrieved 29 May 2021.

Bogdanov, Vladimir (2001). The AllMusic Guide to Electronica, Backbeat UK, ISBN 978-0-87930-628-1, p. ix.

Reynolds, Simon (1 December 1991), "Pop View; 'Dream-Pop' Bands Define the Times in Britain", The New York Times, retrieved 7 March 2010

[controlcube]

Week 9

In this week, I’ve shift my focus on the sound project. I based on the atmosphere that “That Other Girl” portraits and made my own soundtrack. https://soundcloud.com/cheng-chen-487343635/halfdream-1?si=8e9dc69c1e5c4e31a95e9687d96651b9

The soundtrack is of high reverb and echo, in order to create a spatial, empty and a sense of hollowness in response to the blur and vagueness of the visual. (Marv., 1987)

To further identify the traits of hypnagogia, which is “ snatches of imagined speech“ (Marv., 1987), in the screeshot, I’ve added several fragments of vocals.

The soundtrack now has its base but no lead. Thus, I experimented with the MIDI instruments for a while and finally tuned a e-piano into a string-like, reverse played sound. Following Darrin’s advice in the second assignment presentation, I’ve listened whole bunch of songs lately and I found out that 8 out of 10 times, psychedelic songs are of samples played reversedly, which is backmasking in term. When the sequence is backward played, the vibe became trippy and subtle. 

For example, in Antidote by Travis Scott, the beat maker revealed that they found the original sample. They half-speed, reversed it and then the vibe of the song suddenly just sounded dreamy and trippy.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFT6g5V_52w

Bibliography

Mavromatis (1987), p. 81

Rechtschaffen, A., & Kales, A. (1968). A manual of standardized terminology, techniques and scoring system for sleep stages of human subjects. Washington, DC: Public Health Service, U.S. Government Printing.

Foulkes D., Vogel G. (1965). "Mental activity at sleep onset". Journal of Abnormal Psychology. 70 (4): 231–43. doi:10.1037/h0022217.

[controlcube]

Week 8

Work in Progress

The video part for the project is a challenging one for me. I’ve leaned how to create a infinity tunnel effect with a picture of a man screaming, opening his mouth.

By masking out the other part than the mouth, adding keyframes and effects, the mouth would appear as a tunnel.

Link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfPNefYvkwk

In this video, I’ve drawn inspiration of having quick transitions of images as a imagery trait for the state of hypnagogic. Plus, I’ve notice in 2:20, the visual becomes a shot of bee flying. I thought the shots of nature could actually help to portrait a state of hypnagogic in which “hypnagogic imagery is usually lacking in narrative content” (Valtil, etc. (2005))

And back to the mouth tunnel effect I was making, I plan to make this endless tunnel keeps popping up throughout the video in response to the idea of repetition and a sense of psychedlia.

Bibliography

Youtube (2021). Retrieved 2 October 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw5NojnhU6o&t=256s

Youtube (2021). Retrieved 2 October 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfPNefYvkwk

Vaitl, Dieter; Birbaumer, Niels; Gruzelier, John; Jamieson, Graham A.; Kotchoubey, Boris; Kübler, Andrea; Lehmann, Dietrich; Miltner, Wolfgang H. R.; Ott, Ulrich; Pütz, Peter; Sammer, Gebhard; Strauch, Inge; Strehl, Ute; Wackermann, Jiri; Weiss, Thomas (2005). "Psychobiology of Altered States of Consciousness". Psychological Bulletin. 131 (1): 98–127. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.131.1.98. ISSN 1939-1455. PMID 15631555.

[controlcube]

Week 7

Emerging in mid-late 2000s, Hypnogogic Pop or Psychedelic Pop is a genre of music that evokes cultural memory and nostalgia for the popular entertainment in 1980s. It is characterized by retro aesthetics, such as radio rock, new wave pop, lite rock, video game music, synth-pop, and R&B. This type of music is believed to trigger the sense of hypnogogia. 

According to Morgan Poyau, Hypnagogic pop features "ecstatically blurry and irradiated lo-fi pop" to "seventies cosmic-synth-rock" and "tripped-out, tribal exotica". The sense of hypnagogia can be derived from these effects. As the artists are trying to retrace the past, the work they made was, however, by more advanced technology and understanding. This kind of output further triggers the feeling of being in a dream but still with some signs of being in current time. 

Following the thread of hynogogic pop, I’ve searched the psychedelic music for more reference in my project. According to Rubin and Melnick(2007), they found it features exotic instrumentation, with a particular fondness for the sitar and tabla are common. And Michael (2000) even further exemplified that songs in this particular genre often have more disjunctive song structures, key and time signature changes, modal melodies and drones than contemporary pop music. Despite that, one of the most outstanding point that psychelidelic music has is the strong presence of keyboard. As Borthwick and Moy (2004) mentions the studio effects of psychedelic music that laborate studio effects are often used, such as backwards tapes, panning the music from one side to another of the stereo track, using the "swooshing" sound of electronic phasing, long delay loops and extreme reverb. Up to now, these techniques are still quite often used in many music genre and the industries, which give me an inspiration and note to tryout these while making my project. 

Bibliography

1. Poyau, Morgan (July 13, 2011). "The 80s Nostalgia Aesthetic Of Music's Hottest New Subgenre: Hypnagogic Pop". Vice Media. Retrieved August 15, 2016.

2. Schilling, Dave (April 8, 2015). "That Was a Thing: The Brief History of the Totally Made-Up Chillwave Music Genre". Grantland.

3. Price, Joe (August 29, 2016). "Vaporwave's Second Life". Complex.

4. Sherburne, Philip (May 22, 2012). "Last Step: Going to Sleep to Make Music to Sleep To". Spin Magazine. Retrieved 4 July 2016.

5. Hicks, Michael (August 2000). Sixties Rock: Garage, Psychedelic, and Other Satisfactions. Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press. pp. 63–64. ISBN 0-252-06915-3.

6. S. Borthwick and R. Moy, Popular Music Genres: an Introduction (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004), ISBN 0-7486-1745-0, pp. 52–4.

[controlcube]

Week 6

Love Death & Robot

This is a TV series on Netflix. Every episode has independent stories about the future of human life in relation to technology. Throughout the episode, I found the most exciting and academically valuable third episode titled The Witness.

The story is about a girl who witnessed a crime scene across her apartment, unfortunately, the murderer noticed her across the window, so and she did as much as she can to run away from the murderer.

At the start of the episode, the manipulation of the camera scene and sound has already attracted me to what is about to happen next. The main character was wearing makeup, the scene is constant and peaceful; so is the background sound.

Suddenly, the camera shifts into a scene where two people are fighting with the sound of screaming, yelling, and gunshots. But just as I was trying my best to see and hear what is about to happen, the camera and sound switched back to the main character's room. This technique is called CROSS-CUTTING.

Cross-cutting can do two things:

1. making the two scenes parallel in time, so the audience would think these scenes are happening simultaneously.

2. by shortening the shots of the scenes and increasing the rhythm of these scenes, the editor can increase the tension of the story.

Also, such an editing pattern gives the audience access to more information than anyone character in the narrative.

Thus, as can conclude from above, the quick switch between the scenes together with sound is another useful method to increase the energy level and tension of a film and even a video work sometimes.

[controlcube]

Week 5

A good music video work Famous by Kanye West​

This is a very controversial video once it was released online. The video depicts wax figures of West, Swift, Kardashian, George W. Bush, Donald Trump, Anna Wintour, Rihanna, Chris Brown, Ray J, Amber Rose, Caitlyn Jenner, and Bill Cosby all sleeping nude in a shared bed.

But still, the video is an artistic music video making the songs and video work together to impact the audience.

The length of the song itself is only 3-minutes long; the length of the video is 10-minute long instead. Throughout the video, the music is on and off constantly.

While the music is off, the background sound such as people (and wax figures) snoring, sleep-breathing, and even the working sound of cameras are brought back to the audience in order to add more credit to the reality that West is creating.

The purposedly pause of background music is also a very strong tool to draw the audience's attention to what is happening in the video.

[controlcube]

Week 4

The effects of music tempo

This is a partial screenshot of research done to test which tempo of the music is best for long-distance driving. i.e. reduces the fatigue. I found it to be most useful when I found the result to be:

That said, firstly, medium-tempo music is best for long-distance driving, because it helps drivers concentrate and relieves fatigue; secondly, which is in opposition to my presumption that slow music, in fact, will improve the short-time attention for drivers.

​ Like the scenes in the TV series Hannibal, where the main character cooks but with human meat. The background music is slow, relaxing, and graceful. But the audience will not feel this way. Because the visual information they get is scary, disgusting, and intimidating. This will create dissonance in the audience's mind, further strengthening the discomfort which the director wanted the audience to feel.  This helps prove my point that the audience will feel both confused by cognitive dissonance and then more intense in whatever emotion the scene depicts.

Following this thread, I started to have an idea that what will happen if in my project, when the energy level reaches the peak level, I put slow and smoothy music instead of fast and heart-pumping music? Will the audience be confused? Will they feel more intense? Or will they feel both? My answer is, yes, and they will feel both.

​

[controlcube]

Week 3

Sound design research

I watched several tutorials concerning the sound design aspects, I found one of the basic idea in sound design is adding layers, or in other words, the thickness of the sound. Just like the screenshot above, different sounds are put together to thicken the sound quality. I found that this technique is essential especially in the filming industry.

As I am interested in music, I have watched a channel for more than 2 years called Genius which make interviews with many hit-song producers. I learned a lot of techniques and knowledge not only in the field of music-producing but also the subtle relation between sound and image. More specifically, producers always make music to embody their visual imagination into rhythmic sounds.

For example, as for techniques in music producing, many implemented the way of half-speeding and reversal-playing the sample to get a new vibe different from the original one in their first step of producing ( take the example of the making of Travis Scotts Antidote). 

[controlcube]

Hypnagogic hallucination

Hypnagogia is the transitional state of consciousness between wakefulness and sleep.

During hypnagogia, it's common to experience involuntary and imagined experiences. These are referred to as hypnagogic hallucinations.

A person will experience vivid hallucinations as they fall asleep, or just before falling asleep. These can be images, smells, tastes, tactile sensations, or sounds. A person may also feel as if they are moving while their body is still. This sensation could be a feeling of falling or flying.

[controlcube]

Tetris Effect and Hypnagogia

The Tetris effect (also known as Tetris syndrome) occurs when people devote so much time and attention to an activity that it begins to pattern their thoughts, mental images, and dreams. It takes its name from the video game Tetris.

When the activity involves moving objects, as in the video game Tetris, the corresponding hypnagogic images tend to be perceived as moving. [1]

Stickgold R, Malia A, Maguire D, Roddenberry D, O'Connor M (2000). "Replaying the game: Hypnagogic images in normals and amnesics". Science. 290 (5490): 350–3. doi:10.1126/science.290.5490.350. PMID 11030656.

[controlcube]

L$D by A$AP Rocky, is a music video of rich visual effects. The visual effects are of hypnagogic-featuring colors and subtleness. The video is made according to its song’s name “LSD,” a drug that causes hallucinations. 

Following this thread, the state of being hypnagogic can be well exemplified by this video: echotic vocals, high-note synthesizers resembling subtle sounds, and astigmatism-like visual effects altogether work as the first-person experience of hallucination.

[controlcube]

Over Your Skin by Rus Khasanov is an artpiece combined with fluorescent pigment and video shooting. It reveals the mysterious “mountains” and “rivers” over our skin. 

This piece of video runs at a just right pace with colorful visual. From my standpoint, it not only embodies the greatness of our skin, but also the fluidity of our mind and thoughts. For most of the time, we are able to see thing only in macro world and thus we neglect the micro world. If we assume our mind can be seen in micro world, I could not think of a better example of what it looks like.

[controlcube]

MISE-EN-ABYME by Laetitia de Allegri, Matteo Fogale, and Johnson Tiles is an installation artwork mainly made of Acrylic materials. Just as it’s named,  Mise-en-abyme is meant for “into the depth.”

The use of various color and transparent glasses made the path unreal. It makes viewers start to doubt if it is a trick by our brain. According to Cate McQuaid (October 1, 1998), the sense of hypnagogic is based on the unrealness, chaos and as well as new birth.

Cate, M. (1998, October 1). Boston Globe.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_yOVARO2Oc.

[controlcube]

NOMAD by TUNDRA is an audio-visual generative laser projection work. They use laser projectors and some programming skills to create a machine-generated laser projection work.

It depicts the order, chaos and chaos with order. This is exactly what hallucination feels like--intense, orderless, but always make sense.

[controlcube]

This is a recording video of an installation art titled The Sun Has No Money. 

Apart from the meaning behind the artpiece, the very last portion of the video could be an example of hypnagogic state--things getting blurry, out of focus and that everything is melting into spilled pigments. 

This is a good video to refer to for visually depicting the feeling of hypnagogic.