Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Weinel
Keyword(s):  
Electronic Music ◽  
Visual Media ◽  
Altered States Of Consciousness ◽  
Altered States ◽  
States Of Consciousness ◽  
Psychedelic Drugs ◽  
Aims And Scope ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Visual Technologies

This introduction to Inner Sound: Altered States of Consciousness in Electronic Music and Audio-Visual Media outlines the background, aims, and scope of the book. The chapter begins by introducing altered states of consciousness through a description of visual hallucinations, which may have provided a basis for some of the oldest-known artworks. Next, a brief historical overview of altered states is given, from ancient shamanic traditions and cults, to modern-day use of psychedelic drugs such as LSD. The use of altered states in these contexts has resulted in a variety of associated art, literature, music, films, and video games, which in recent years have been rendered with the aid of new sound and audio-visual technologies. These works provide the main focus of Inner Sound, which explores the relationship of altered states of consciousness with electronic music and audio-visual media, in order to develop a conceptual theory of ‘Altered States of Consciousness Simulations’.

Abstractions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Weinel
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Video Games ◽  
Electronic Music ◽  
Sensory Experience ◽  
Visual Media ◽  
Altered States Of Consciousness ◽  
Altered States ◽  
Ethical Implications ◽  
States Of Consciousness ◽  
Immersive Technologies

The concluding chapter of Inner Sound: Altered States of Consciousness in Electronic Music and Audio-Visual Media consolidates the main arguments of the book. The journey taken is recapitulated, from shamanic rituals to psychedelic rock shows and raves; and from outdoor electroacoustic concerts to synaesthetic films and hallucinatory video games. Across these examples, similar underlying principles can be identified, revealing a continuity from ancient shamanism to modern ‘technoshamanism’. Yet while some imperatives have remained consistent, the technologies have evolved, yielding ever-more accurate and sophisticated representations of altered states in electronic music and audio-visual media. This finds us on the brink of ‘Altered States of Consciousness Simulations’, which replicate the sensory experience of altered states using immersive technologies such as fulldomes and virtual reality headsets. Looking forwards, the possible uses and ethical implications of these simulations are explored, at the frontiers of electronic music and art.

Inner Sound

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Weinel
Keyword(s):  
Electronic Music ◽  
Interactive Video ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Visual Media ◽  
Altered States Of Consciousness ◽  
Altered States ◽  
Electronic Dance Music ◽  
Visual Music ◽  
Person Perspective ◽  
States Of Consciousness

Inner Sound explores how altered states of consciousness have shaped the design of electronic music and audio-visual media. The book begins by discussing consciousness, and how this may change during states such as dreaming, psychedelic experience, meditation, and trance. Next, a variety of shamanic traditions are reviewed, in order to explore how indigenous societies have reflected visionary experiences through visual art and music. This provides the necessary background from which to consider how analogue and digital audio technologies enable specific capabilities for representing or inducing altered states of consciousness in psychedelic rock, electronic dance music, and electroacoustic music. Developing the discussion to consider sound in the context of audio-visual media, the role of altered states of consciousness in films, visual music, VJ performances, interactive video games, and virtual reality applications is also discussed. Through the analysis of these examples, the author uncovers common mechanisms, and ultimately proposes a conceptual model for ‘Altered States of Consciousness Simulations’. This theoretical model describes how sound can be used to simulate various subjective states of consciousness from a first-person perspective, in an interactive context. Throughout the book, the ethical issues regarding altered states of consciousness in electronic music and audio-visual media are also explored, ultimately allowing the reader to consider not only the design of Altered States of Consciousness Simulations, but also the implications of their use for digital society. In this way, Inner Sound explores the limits of technology for representing and manipulating consciousness, at the frontiers of electronic music and art.

Synaesthetic Overdrive

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Weinel
Keyword(s):  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Visual Media ◽  
Altered States Of Consciousness ◽  
Altered States ◽  
Visual Music ◽  
Background Theory ◽  
States Of Consciousness ◽  
Feature Films ◽  
Expanded Cinema ◽  
Improved Accuracy

This chapter discusses altered states of consciousness in audio-visual media, such as films, psychedelic light shows, and VJ performances. First, some background theory is introduced, explaining the main categories of film sound, and what research tells us regarding the way in which sound influences the perception of visual images and vice versa. Following this background section, a tour is provided through various films that represent altered states of consciousness, including surrealist movies, ‘trance films’, and Hollywood feature films. These demonstrate a progression, where more recent movies are able to make use of digital audio and visual effects to represent the subjective experience of altered states with improved accuracy. Meanwhile, beyond the traditional confines of the cinema, ‘expanded cinema’ works such as visual music, psychedelic light shows, and VJ performances have provided increasingly sophisticated synaesthetic experiences, which are designed to transform the consciousness of their audience.

Profane Illuminations: Robert Anton Wilson’s Hedonic Ascesis

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-232
Author(s):  
Erik Davis
Keyword(s):  
Altered States Of Consciousness ◽  
The Self ◽  
Altered States ◽  
States Of Consciousness ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Peter Sloterdijk ◽  
Psychedelic Drugs ◽  
Meta Programming ◽  
Aleister Crowley ◽  
American Counterculture

Abstract The writer Robert Anton Wilson (1932–2007) played a significant intellectual role in the American counterculture in the late 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Drawing from a wide range of discourses, as well as his own occultural fictions and personal experiments in “hedonic engineering,” Wilson presented a pluralistic view of reality that combined a pragmatic skepticism with a creative and esoteric embrace of the “meta-programming” possibilities of altered states of consciousness. In his 1975 Illuminatus! trilogy, written with Robert Shea, Wilson wove anarchist, psychedelic, and occult themes into a prophetic conspiracy fiction written with a satiric and willfully pulp sensibility. Ritually experimenting with psychedelic drugs and sexual magic – experiences related in his 1977 book Cosmic Trigger – Wilson developed a wayward if deeply self-reflexive theory and dialectical method of visionary practice, one that, amidst the paranoia, presented its own deconstructive and libertarian vision of gnosis. This essay contextualizes and unpacks Wilson’s visionary pragmatism in terms of Foucault’s roughly contemporaneous notion of “technologies of self,” later elaborated by Peter Sloterdijk as “anthropotechnics.” It also traces the specific debts that Wilson owed to other esoteric and psychedelic technologists of the self, including Aleister Crowley, Timothy Leary, and John Lilly.

scholarly journals Psychedelics and the science of self-experience

2017 ◽  
Vol 210 (3) ◽  
pp. 177-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew M. Nour ◽  
Robin L. Carhart-Harris
Keyword(s):  
Functional Neuroimaging ◽  
Altered States Of Consciousness ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
Psychoactive Drugs ◽  
Altered States ◽  
States Of Consciousness ◽  
Psychedelic Drugs ◽  
Psychiatric Conditions

SummaryAltered self-experiences arise in certain psychiatric conditions, and may be induced by psychoactive drugs and spiritual/religious practices. Recently, a neuroscience of self-experience has begun to crystallise, drawing upon findings from functional neuroimaging and altered states of consciousness occasioned by psychedelic drugs. This advance may be of great importance for psychiatry.

Sadomasochism as a path to altered states of consciousness

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
James K. Ambler ◽  
Ellen M. Lee ◽  
Kathryn R. Klement ◽  
Tonio Loewald ◽  
Brad J. Sagarin
Keyword(s):  
Altered States Of Consciousness ◽  
Altered States ◽  
States Of Consciousness
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