The Oxford Handbook of Video Game Music and Sound
June 20, 2024
Jonathan Weinel
Abstract Jonathan Weinel explores aural aspects of the increasingly common representation in video games of an altered state of consciousness (ASC) such as intoxication, hallucination, and psychosis. He first outlines how ASCs, produced, for instance, by drug intake, form and shape our subjective experience before suggesting how such experiences can be designed for in video games. Weinel uses...
Electronic Visualisation and the Arts London Conference
July 1, 2022
Jonathan Weinel
Explosions in the Mind: Composing Psychedelic Sound and Visualisations (Weinel, 2021) is a new book exploring more than a decade of the author’s practice-led research composing sound and visualisations based on altered states of consciousness such as hallucinations and experiences of synaesthesia (Figure 1). The book is part of the Palgrave Studies in Sound series, edited by Prof. Mark...
The Oxford Handbook of Sound and Imagination, Volume 2
September 26, 2019
Jonathan Weinel
Jonathan Weinel deals with the representation of hallucinations within audiovisual media. Weinel forms his discussion around the concept of augmented unreality, providing examples from films, VJ performances, video games, and other audiovisual media to show how sounds are used to represent hallucinations. His focus is on the material design of the representations of hallucinations, and he...
Inner Sound
April 12, 2018
Jonathan Weinel
Abstract: This chapter explores altered states of consciousness in interactive video games and virtual reality applications. First, a brief overview of advances in the sound and graphics of video games is provided, which has led to ever-more immersive capabilities within the medium. Following this, a variety of games that represent states of intoxication, drug use, and hallucinations are...
Inner Sound
April 12, 2018
Jonathan Weinel
Abstract: This chapter discusses shamanism, explaining the ethos and mythology of several indigenous societies, and how these belief systems relate to the design of art and music. First, a general overview of shamanism is provided, which outlines the typical role and function of a shaman. An explanation of the shamanic visionary experience, a type of altered state of consciousness, is then...
Inner Sound
April 12, 2018
Jonathan Weinel
Abstract: This chapter explores how sound systems place electronic sounds in a social context, eliciting powerful affective experiences that are framed by conceptual meaning. The chapter begins by tracing the origins of the sound system culture and dub-reggae of Jamaica. This approach, which prioritizes DJ performances over ‘live’ musicians, would prefigure the electronic dance music culture of...
Inner Sound
April 12, 2018
Jonathan Weinel
Abstract: 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...
Inner Sound
April 12, 2018
Jonathan Weinel
Abstract: This chapter provides an introduction to consciousness, and explores how our subjective experiences change during a variety of altered states of consciousness. An overview of cognition is given, outlining the processes involved in the construction of our experiences within the ‘stream’ or ‘theatre of consciousness’. Next, the main varieties of altered states of consciousness are...
Inner Sound
April 12, 2018
Jonathan Weinel
Abstract: This chapter explores how electroacoustic music takes the listener on a journey through unreal, imaginary, or hallucinatory sound-worlds. The chapter commences with a general explanation of electroacoustic music, and how it may allow illusory representations of real and unreal sounds and spaces. Following this, various compositions of electroacoustic music are discussed, which are...
April 12, 2018
Jonathan Weinel
Abstract 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...
Inner Sound
April 12, 2018
Jonathan Weinel
Abstract 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...
Inner Sound
April 12, 2018
Jonathan Weinel
Abstract This chapter explores how music technologies and electronic studio processes relate to altered states of consciousness in popular music. First, an overview of audio technologies such as multi-tracking, echo, and reverb is given, in order to explore their illusory capabilities. In the rock ’n’ roll music of the 1950s, studio production techniques such as distortion provided a means...
March 3, 2016
Jonathan Weinel
Altered states of consciousness (ASCs) are perceptual states, such as dream, delirium, or hallucination that fall beyond a commonly accepted normal waking consciousness. This article discusses Entoptic Phenomena in Audio, a collection of four electroacoustic compositions that are based upon the author’s research regarding these states. The compositional process utilised involves consideration...
Electronic Visualisation and the Arts London Conference
July 7, 2015
Jonathan Weinel
It has been proposed that among the earliest known artworks produced by humans may have been representations of altered states of consciousness (ASCs). With the advent of modern computer technology that enables the creation of almost any sound or image imaginable, the possibility of representing the subjective visual and aural components of hallucinatory experiences with increased realism...
Electronic Visualisation and the Arts London Conference
July 1, 2014
Jonathan Weinel, Stuart Cunningham, N. Roberts et al.
Psych Dome (Weinel 2013a) is a short interactive piece of visual music first presented in an immersive 'full dome' environment that forms part of the authors' on-going research regarding Altered States of Consciousness (ASC) as a basis for the design of computer-based artworks.