Ellison is open about his experiments with DMT (he blogged about it on MySpace) and mescaline, as well as lucid dreaming and out-of-body experiences (OOBEs). His song “1983,” from the 2006 album of the same name, brought him early attention for its use on Adult Swim’s promos (here’s a newer one from this January, containing a clip from Cosmogramma). He’s also praised for his style that’s reminiscent of classic video game sounds from the 8-bit NES era (and the video below even contains a video game-style segment).

This music video is for the song “MmmHmm (feat. Thundercat),” which, as you can see from the still shot, features the symbol of the Tao, more commonly known as “yin and yang” in the West. There’s no overt suggestion of meaning, but the symbol also suggests the “union of opposites”—an idea that is prevalent throughout all major mythologies and religions of the world. Plus, the characters in the video are a male Native American in headdress and a female Cannabis Sativa plant. The blending of all elements suggests an end of dualism between plant and animal, man and woman, cosmos and psyche, reality and video games (or virtual reality), etc.

So cheers to Flying Lotus for creating some of the most mind-expanding music (and music videos) of 2010! (By the way, his video for the song “Kill Your Co-Workers,” from the EP Pattern+Grid World, is equally stunning.)

Then the Internet created the potential for networked video games like the Sims and online worlds like Second Life. Some people spent more time (and even money) in those virtual realms than they did in “real life.” Obviously there’s an aspect of escapism at work in these cases–but in Second Life people were still sitting in front of a computer, not actually participating in a 3-dimensional simulation of the physical universe.

I know that more advanced virtual reality systems have existed for quite some time, but they’re always super-expensive–only available in catalogs for stores like the Sharper Image. In a way, it seemed like people just stopped caring about the concept itself, much in the same way that people have lost track of the Space Age feeling of cosmic exploration that persisted at least until the end of the 1980s.

But now I’m starting to think our ideas about virtual reality have been really rudimentary so far. When I imagine such a game or system, it inevitably looks and feels like “reality.” More specifically, the laws of physics would be set much as they are in the actual physical world–especially gravity. It’s not that people are against the concept of lower gravity; it’s more that we haven’t considered our other options.

Then last week I found a video game called “And Yet It Moves” (AYIM) for the Nintendo Wii. It’s a small WiiWare game (meaning it’s stored on the system hard drive), and yet it’s one of the most innovative gameplaying experiences I’ve seen on any system–even compared to the more advanced graphics of the PS3 and XBOX 360. AYIM is a 2.5-D game, meaning you move on a 2D surface, but there is texture in the background and foreground for visual effect. It’s a style first developed in games like Super Mario World, on the SNES system of the early ’90s. (I posted two videos of the AYIM gameplay below, synched with songs by Bibio and Toro Y Moi; I listened to them while I played and filmed.)

In the game, you control a character who can run and jump around a course. The first surprise is that, by pressing a button, you can freeze the motion. Then, by tilting the controller left and right (and keeping the button pressed), you rotate the screen around the character. Gravity always pulls down, so whenever you release the freeze button, the character falls in the direction his feet are pointing. With gravity a turned down a bit (so the jumps are sort of graceful), it makes for a pretty remarkable gaming experience!

And after a few days of playing this game, I’ve begun to rethink the possibilities of what virtual reality could actually be like. Can you imagine how it would feel to be fully immersed in an environment like the one in AYIM? We wouldn’t be able to take for granted which direction is “up” or “down,” if that was something we could change with a button (or better yet, with our mind). It reminded me of Escher’s drawings with staircases going in every direction (and even the film Labyrinth, in which David Bowie, playing the Gnome King, navigates such a maze of stairs).

I imagine they’ll have body suits with digital sensors, and some kind of mask with a peripheral screen. My point is that the kind of augmented reality we see on iPhone apps is only the beginning. Think of how awesome it would be to be able to walk through a field of bioluminescent flowers, and then turn gravity around, stand on a tree branch, and watch the flowers swaying on the ceiling!

Another thing I noticed while playing this game is that the anxiety I used to feel playing games where you can “die”–like the old school Super Mario Bros games–was absent from the AYIM experience. If you fall too great a distance in AYIM, your character explodes into little bits of paper (everything in the game is designed to look like ripped paper)–but you simply start again at the last checkpoint without even any jolting sound effects. No punishment whatsoever. Even if you fall into one of the “black holes” at the edge of the screen, it’s kind of fun to watch the character spin off into oblivion.

Usually we consider escapism a bad thing, and some kinds definitely cause more harm than good. But this is our world to build. I think the human mind has an unquenchable thirst for wonder and amazement. What we do with our spare time is indicative of our overall priorities, individually and collectively. The way I look at it, many people waste a good portion of their life energy between a job they hate and a bar “where everyone knows your name.” If I am productive every day, I think I deserve a reward of spending some time in a mental place that’s a little more extraordinary than my immediate physical surroundings.

The first thing I tell people about AYIM is that it’s like a dream (I guess it would be a lucid dream). A lot of our “entertainment” is more like a nightmare. Perhaps this is an example of how we’ve approached all technology up until this point. It’s not the technology in itself that is diminishing the quality of human life. It’s how we use the technology, as consumers and as a society.

I think video games are undergoing a gradual evolution with parallels to the current changes in human society. Currently war video games make the most money by far. It’s sad, but like Julian Assange commented in a recent Guardian Q&A, the first thing the Apache helicopter video demonstrates is that killing people is fun. Eventually we’re going to see that those war games are promoting territorial primate behavior and Stone Age mental patterns.

Personally I’d rather float around a dreamscape of trees and mossy background, as in AYIM. Or swing from neon plants and vines collecting pollen, like in the PS3 game Eden. Or soar around picturesque meadows and canyons from the POV of some flower petals (PS3′s Flower).

For the past few years I’ve limited my video game usage while I spent some necessary time reading and self-reflecting. But I can’t ignore that the possibilities are endless for the technologies of video games and virtual reality. I look forward to seeing what fantastic worlds we choose to create.

The song below is called “Cheaters,” from their debut full-length album 7 AM. The record runs short at 37 minutes, but the replay value is enormous. They take a simplistic approach on this video—a psychedelic visualizer to fit the uplifting song. Everybody needs some day-glo action once in a while!

Teengirl Fantasy will be accompanying Crystal Castles on a short tour this spring, which should make for some amazing shows!

I had originally intended to feature Oneohtrix Point Never in this post, a similar electronics-in-outer-space outfit. That one-man act has released at least five albums in the last couple of years. Both Emeralds and Oneohtrix remind me of the music they play in the Spaceship Earth ride at Epcot Center, which of course is a huge geodesic dome—a “bucky ball,” nicknamed after R. Buckminster Fuller, that under-appreciated visionary.

The space age sort of died in the late ’80s, when the alien paranoia starting building up in the X Files era. I think we’re entering a second space age, and this time we’ll be aiming much further out (and inward). Each human mind contains a universe. And the Earth is a space shuttle, constantly rotating on its axis and revolving around the sun. “We are all astronauts,” as Fuller said. I think Emeralds and Oneohtrix Point Never understand that idea (maybe just intuitively, not consciously). Some of their songs also remind me of Pink Floyd during the Dark Side of the Moon/Wish You Were Here/Animals era.

I started writing about music in 2005 because it’s always inspired me. But for the past 9 months I’ve been widening my topic coverage quite a bit. I’m still a voracious music listener, and lately I’m even more excited about audio/visual experimentation. Music videos have always been great for that! Plus, I figured everyone can thrive on some positive energy.

With that in mind, I’m planning five brief posts about the artists and albums from 2010 that I had on repeat over and over again, with an official music video from each album. More specifically, this series is about MIND EXPANSION—the kind of music that you’d want to have if you were leaving tomorrow on a tour of the galaxy. The styles and sub-genres that I consider to be at the forefront in that regard are dubsteb, ambient techno, experimental electronic, glo-fi, glitch hop, and a few others.

But enough about labels. The first entry in this mini-series is the album Lucky Shiner by Gold Panda, a solo artist from the UK (myspace.com/goldpanda). This was his first full-length album, after releasing a few exciting EPs over the past couple of years. The music video below is for the song “Snow and Taxis,” which is strange, because it contains neither snow nor taxis. However, it does contain a dreamlike stroll through a forest, which is at times phosphorescent and vibrational. It makes me miss living in a place where forests are more plentiful. (Sigh)

For more of my music writing history, please check out my old MusicEdge blog or my personal website. Stay tuned for more great music from 2010!

I know I said I wouldn’t write for a while, but come on…give me a break. I’ve been blogging consistently since January 2006 (not just here—other places). It’s like a muscle reflex at this point! I’ll only be writing a few times a month, but that’s better than nothing!

I was probably late in hearing about the viral video “David After Dentist.” Or maybe not. I don’t really have a sense of “pop culture” anymore. I’ve watched television once in the past four months, and I’ve developed a heightened aversion to the daily news flow. I do know that this has already been on “Tosh.O,” and I think that says something. There’s also the fact that it had 3 million views within the first few days of being online.

Anyways, I mention this video in an essay inspired by the film Inception that I just finished. My first thought: it’s so funny that YouTube is now like America’s Funniest Home Videos, but for the entire world. Second, what a clear image of complete existential horror! Can’t help but laughing, even though (*shudder*) I’ve sometimes felt this way. What I didn’t consider the first time I watched it is that he was probably terrified by the dentist! That experience still scares the dung out of me.

I suddenly find myself wrapped up in a project that could very well become a book. I can’t say too much about it yet, but it’s an exploration the spot where I think we’re stuck as a civilization. The basic idea came to me on July 2, and since then I’ve been working like a mad man, researching and taking notes.

It’s exciting, to say the least! I never thought I would get to this point. Apparently self-publishing the collection of early works, Seeking the Upward Spiral, helped me move to the next level. It must have provided adequate closure to a very dark four-year period in my life.

So now, onward and upward! You may see an occasional post from me, if I have some news to share. And who knows, maybe I’ll post updates on my progress. In the interim, please keep an eye on Supraterranean. We really need submissions! Also, did you see the new Thumpme blog? If not, have a lookie!

About a month ago I was preparing a streaming video player for an event at work. During downtime, the player streams old content from Michigan Television (public TV at U of M that has now been closed). In a pleasant coincidence, I happened to see an interview with Thylias Moss, an English professor at U-M who teaches a class on “Limited Fork Theory” in the School of Art and Design.

I figure you’re asking, “But what’s ‘Limited Fork Theory’?” It starts as a class about digital composition, but then goes way past the limits of traditional college education. As the course synopsis explains,

The approach is thematic rather than monolithic allowing students to draw information from any and all areas of their experience toward investigations of their own devising within a thematic context, this semester: framing systems. Limited Fork Theory is the study of interacting language systems: any/all visual, sonic, olfactory, tactile systems/subsystems on any/all scales for some duration of time.

Then Moss’ website 4orked.com says it

is also a Theory of Everything that not only includes, but also appreciates: imagination, the fruitfulness of dead ends, the possibilities of error, the usefulness of failure, the beauty of the many configurations of the box the limited fork comes out of and goes into, forking, reconfiguring, shaping, folding, unfolding, and bifurcating all the way.

Many paths to many worlds: one limited fork.

I’m impressed that this development has come about at a public institution. Moss was an awarded poet before developing this theory and corresponding practice. But it seems she risked more than her reputation as a writer in pursuing her passion. She was already an English professor when it began, and as she says in the video below, she interrupted the schedule of a semester course to take this new direction!

As she relates, “When I went to class on Monday, I had my students throw out everything. I said to them, ‘I don’t believe what I said when class has started. I cannot continue.’”

Moss posts online under the pseudonym Forker Girl, which she calls “the embodiment of Limited Fork Theory.” I find it especially interesting that she’s not keeping it a secret, like most professionals did with their pseudonymous work in the past. However, I think Forker Girl might be more of an alternate personality than a pen name.

Moss implies that Forker Girl is more free to express “herself,” which brings to mind the way Tyler Durden empowered the narrator in Fight Club. It seems this transition will happen more frequently in the future, as people stop allowing themselves to be limited to one professional role, trying to adhere to an imaginary idea of what’s “normal” for adults.

From Moss’ viewpoint, anyone can partake in this sort of exercise. “Certainly in imagination if no other way, you can allow these things to converge – allow something to happen. And then the role of a person who would be a practitioner of Limited Fork Theory would be to somehow document what happens.”

In a second video Moss demonstrates how even taking an abstract photograph can fuel her inspiration. “…there is no rule to the orientation of [the photo.] You see, as we turn it, we get other ideas. Other possibilities emerge. From this we get to experience and understand and analyze those perspectives denied to us based upon the limits of human perception.”

There’s a synchronicity in this story as well. I discovered Limited Fork Theory about the same time I was reading Aldous Huxley’s Heaven and Hell, a survey of tools used to induce visionary experience throughout human history — everything from precious gems to religious fasting to mescalin. To Huxley, what makes an experience visionary is the extent to which it transports a person beyond those “limits of human perception” that Moss mentioned.

Just as nicotinic acid can stop the visions caused by lysergic acid or mescalin, according to Huxley, “another inhibitor of visionary experience is ordinary, everyday, perceptual experience.” (p. 87) A person’s visionary power is defined by his or her awareness of the experience, voluntary control over it, and ability to express it to others. “For most of us most of the time, the world of everyday experience seems rather dim and drab. But for a few people often, and for a fair number occasionally, some of the brightness of visionary experience spills over, as it were, into common seeing, and the everyday universe is transfigured.” (p. 93)

Huxley makes it pretty clear that psychedelic drugs are only one way of activating the visionary mind, and a very temporary and undependable way at that. It seems that an increasing number of people today are looking for a way into the mental netherworld without having to depend on chemicals. Or stated another way (by fellow blogger Kaliptus), drugs can guide and educate us, but they are misused if the only purpose is “to get fucked up.”

The underlying goal, as Huxley puts it, is to “become capable of experiencing consciously something of that which, unconsciously, is always with us.” (p. 106) And it should be noted that, while some people are more inclined towards visionary perception, the potential exists in the psychological make-up of all human beings. “At the antipodes of every mind lay the Other World of preternatural light and preternatural color, of ideal gems and visionary gold.” (pp. 114-115)

There’s still an air of impossibility when discussing this topic in the Western world, partly because, as Huxley points out, “familiarity breeds indifference.” We live in a flashy, distracting world, and what lies outside of physical perception is almost totally omitted from popular education (whether in school or at home). That’s why it’s so exciting to see someone like Moss at a public university. The students in the video seem absolutely enthralled by the class. I’m hoping this points to a coming trend.

LINKS:
4orked.com
4orkology.com
A Limited Forker Girl’s Tines
English 414 at U of M

Thanks to the wonderful serendipity offered on a regular basis by the Internet, I recently found an amazing Vimeo channel called Tryptophanatic Netvision. Or I should say, the channel found me. Kaliptus, the channel’s creator, added two of my creations to the list of mind-bending videos. So you can get an idea of what it’s all about, here’s the channel description:

Welcome to Tryptophanatic Netvision, where the screenings you are about to witness may reveal some of the deepest secrets of the universe! If you are ready for consciousness expansion, use this channel as a tool. The contents herein vary in style, quality, and nature… ranging from psychotropic animations to mystical videos, tripadelic motion graphics, mind warping experiments, occult surrealism and lots more. This Netvision is geared to alter your very being to a higher level of super hue-man exaltation & inspiration. “Caterpillars” beware!!!
This is “Butterfly” territory.

After reading that I was practically drooling with excitement. I swear I had just been pondering that same metaphor about the metamorphosis from caterpillar to butterfly. I’ve no doubt left hints on this blog about my own efforts to transcend the bizarre situation I find myself in, one that is in no way conducive to the type of creative activity I desperately crave. Somehow I feel oppressed, yet I can’t identify any oppressor. Maybe it’s just a state of claustrophobia brought on by the tight confines of a coccoon, as my organic plasma cooks into something that can lift me off this unsatisfactory plane of existence…

But I’m wandering. I highly recommend that you check out the Vimeo channel. Get comfortable, turn the lights down, and (if at all possible) watch on a large screen with a good sound system.

If you’re not familiar with Vimeo, it’s an alternative to YouTube that is quickly rising in popularity. It’s more stylish and more conducive to social networking. Furthermore, the people on there tend to be more dedicated to creativity — not just posting their home movies or pretending to be TV news anchors. Vimeo is a well sculpted garden, while YouTube is a stinky bog.

The main reason for this post is that Kaliptus is organizing an event in NYC on February 13, 2010, called Tryptophantasia. They’ll be screening experimental animation from the Vimeo channel, so if you’re in the area, please consider checking it out. It’ll probably be un-fricking-believable.

To download the event flier, right click HERE and choose “save link as.”

Also, I have some good news! Kaliptus has agreed to sign on as a new blogger at Supraterranean. Look for updates in the next week or so. It’ll tentatively be called “Tales from Tryptophantasia,” and will focus on many of the same topics as his Vimeo channel. Now please check out the promo video for the Tryptophantasia event below!

I’ll probably being much as I did before, but only the shorter work will appear here. In other words, any time an article goes beyond 600 words, I’ll post it as an essay on Supraterranean or attempt to publish it elsewhere. That’ll make this more of a blog and less of a column (currently most posts run around 1,000-1,400 words!).

Part of why I’m in a proactive mood is because I saw Hugh MacLeod’s online preview for his book Ignore Everybody in today’s Daily Rumpus email from Stephen Elliott. The book’s (more explanatory) subtitle is, “And 39 Other Keys to Creativity” — so it seems to be less a celebration of the solitary life than a modern guide to the creative life. I wasn’t familiar with MacLeod before, but I’m suddenly a fan of both his wisdom and his business card sketches (he explains those at the link). Just to list a few points:

- “Good ideas come with a heavy bur­den. Which is why so few peo­ple have them. So few peo­ple can handle it.”

- “The sove­reignty you have over your work will ins­pire far more peo­ple than the actual con­tent ever will.”

- “Doing anything worthwhile takes fore­ver. 90% of what sepa­ra­tes suc­cess­ful peo­ple and fai­led peo­ple is time, effort, and stamina.”

- “I would find that extra hour or two in the day that belongs to nobody else but me, and I would make it pro­duc­tive. Put the hours in, do it for long enough and magi­cal, life-transforming things hap­pen even­tually. Sure, that means less time watching TV, inter­net sur­fing, going out or wha­te­ver.”

- “Nobody sud­denly dis­co­vers anything. Things are made slowly and in pain.”

- “The price of being a sheep is BOREDOM. The price of being a wolf is LONELINESS. Choose one or the other with great care.”

It only gets better, but I’m nearing my 600-word limit, so you’ll have to read it yourself. MacLeod definitely has a way of putting this kind of thing into perspective with clarity and brevity. A lot of it reminds me of the creative “lone wolves” that I incessantly yap about on here, most notably Henry Miller (and also Camus’s work The Myth of Sisyphus). MacLeod’s sketches are great as well. It’s a less chaotic take on Ralph Steadman’s style, and some of the squiggly blobs are a much more skilled version of my own random notebook doodles during past classes.

I don’t know if I’ll buy the book though. MacLeod claims that his website offers “the first 25%” of the text (yay for alternative publishing models!), but the available selection doesn’t seem very long — at least, not a quarter of a book. Anyway, have a look at his website and let me know what you think. That’s the other part of this New Year’s deal: I’d really like to see more comments on here, to let me know that you’re involved.