Virtual Hallucinations: Projects in VJing, virtual reality and cyberculture

Abstract

This paper discusses a variety of the author's artistic projects exploring altered states of consciousness and computer art. First, the paper will provide a brief overview of previous creative works, which include compositions of electroacoustic music, interactive visualisations, and visual music films. These previous works use the concept of altered states of consciousness as a compositional principle, as explored in the author's book Inner Sound: Altered States of Consciousness in Electronic Music and AudioVisual Media (OUP 2018). Following this, a variety of the author's recent creative work produced from 2016-2019 will be discussed. These works include: a series of paintings that incorporate computer graphics animations when viewed in augmented reality; VJ performances constructed using direct animation on 8mm film, computer graphics animations generated from code and audio-reactive effects; and Cyberdream VR, a virtual reality experience. These interrelated projects continue to develop the author's artistic investigations into altered states, while also referencing work such as demo scene videos; cyberdelic imagery of the type seen on fliers from the 1990s rave-era; and the recent Internet-borne subculture vaporwave, which recontextualises the aesthetics of 1980s and 1990s ambient corporate music and utopian computer graphics to construct surrealistic dystopias.

Worship the Penguin: Adventures with sprites, chiptunes, and lasers

“…For the Art Futura London Festival I performed at DJ/VJ set, also under the Soundcat Alias. This extended the DJ/VJ work that I have previously discussed at EVA (Weinel 2019). Earlier versions of this performance utilised bespoke music videos, which were mixed and recorded in the studio using various techniques in analogue and digital video production, such as direct animation on 8mm film and code written in Processing to generate motion graphics.…”

“…As discussed in previous papers I have presented at EVA (e.g. Weinel 2019Weinel , 2020, and my book Inner Sound: Altered States of Consciousness in Electronic Music and Audio-Visual Media (2018), my creative work explores various interwoven themes related to altered states, synaesthesia, visualisations of sound, and the audio-visual aesthetics of 1990s rave culture. Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic I had been working on an Oculus Quest version of Cyberdream, a virtual reality (VR) piece which explores the aesthetics of 1990s rave culture and synaesthetic visualisations of sound.…”

Painting With Light: Artistic Experiments into the use of Virtual Reality as an Animation Production Environment

“…Cannavò et al, 2019) its artistic potential has only sporadically been discussed. Jon Weinel (2019) Well known examples are the work of Jordan Wolfson on social-ethical reflection through art (Schwartz, 2017) and Chris Milk's use of animation art to create an 'empathy machine' (Ted, 2015).…”

Synaesthetic Audio-Visual Sound Toys in Virtual Reality

“…Contributing towards research in this area, Cyberdream is a project that emerged as a progression of my earlier work in audiovisual composition [8]. This work draws upon the approaches of VJing [3], in which electronic dance music tracks are combined with complementary visuals, taking the audience on an audiovisual journey.…”