As most of my research for this project was in my sketchbook, I thought I’d go over the main bits:

The Magic Mushrooms, a Psilocybin renaissance- this lecture explores much of the propaganda behind the ban on psychedelics, the links between meditation and psilocybin in the how they developed the brain and the history and potential of psychedelics, especially in a society where lack of connection with the world as a whole is causing so much damage. Some interesting points were use of psilocybin in the Maia regions of Mexico before King Allarae of the Goths banned use of plant sacraments in spirituality when spreading Christianity, Maria Sabrina’s use of mushroom in ritual healing, corruption of psychedelics by propaganda regarding rising popularity in recreation use. There were some interesting chemical and biological points, including how serotonin allows us to form world view and a sense of self, how psilocybin decreases activity in the default mode network (which is active under vigilance and oppression, as well as in depressive states), and how poor inter neural connections leads to illness. This lecture encouraged me to explore the role of altered states of consciousness in oppression and compliance in controlling states.

The war on consciousness, Graham Hancock- this lecture was interestingly banned by TED. It explores the dangers of materialist reductionist scientific beliefs and their refusal to explore the mystery of consciousness. Hancock compares the sentient consciousness to a tv signal, which continues after to device is destroyed, a comparison I used in the cctv in my film, with footage continuing from different sources after cameras are cut off. Hancock also goes into the Egyptians research into psychedelics and their value of dreams states. This also lead to me using the blue lotus in my film, as it was a valued psychedelic plant alongside their ‘tree of life’, proven to be a species containing high amounts of DMT. This lecture also touches on how society distracts from mental illness being societally caused and not just chemical imbalances in the brain, how this is exacerbated by the nuclear family (originally founded to benefit capitalism). All legal altered states of consciousness are aligning with societal values. Use of Ayahuasca being spread between countries and administered to provoke a change in consciousness by tribe leaders from South America, in order to restore balance in the world.

In my research into Nietzsche and absurdism made me take an interest into the values of societies based on false gods, or deities manipulated to fit standards of those in power: the way that Christianity in the west has instilled a value of suffering in the example of Jesus, the way that totalising ways of experiencing life encouraged by capitalism and religion are doomed and unfulfilling. This research prompted my original concept for the film, which was coexisting with suffering and absurdity instead of ignoring them.

Kenneth Anger’s Magik Lantern Cycle- this collection of films from early Hollywood inspired me in the use of absurd costume, mute characters and body language, as well as their use of sounds and music (before use of non classical soundtracks was very unusual). Anger explored the occult, celebrity culture, homoeroticism and the pleasures of the flesh, having a massive effect on pop culture of the 20th century.

Midnight Gospel- I did research into a few different shows and films, including Return to Oz where I looked into how it aligns with the Fear Survey Schedule. I also watched a short documentary on Dr Seuss's personal work and drew similarities between the worlds of his personal and commercial work. Watching a video on Midnight Gospel's commentary on Buddhist philosophy and resigning absolute and relative truths prompted me to look into some aspects of Buddhist theology, including the 4 noble truths and the constant unattainable flux of the external world impacting our internal selves. I think this has links to my interest in altered states due to Buddhist practices encouraging an altered state of awareness through reflection and meditation, but my field of knowledge in this area is too limited to attribute my resulting work to.

I did a lot of self reflection in my Sketchbooks, asking questions about the world I was providing to myself and coming up with answers. This should be read by itself, and I think my sketchbook shows a very organic development of my ideas.

While making this film, I also got very invested in Ari Aster's films Hereditary and Midsommar. These films influenced me a lot in my views on systems of control, such as exhausting victims, isolating, using safety as a lure, and use of mind altering substances to break down individuals. However, while these films show the beginning process of this, my video is more focused on the systems continuation.

Final Piece: Dr Guarden’s Dosey Woods

This video has been the culmination of a few ideas and themes, including altered states of consciousness and the ways that they’re prohibited and existing with the absurd. I also explore the human elements behind exploitation, though the way I present them in this film is not representative of the real world.

My main inspirations in this piece were media such as catastrophe crow 64, donthugmeimscared, Midnight Gospel, Ali Aster’s films and Kenneth Anger’s Magik Lantern Cycle. The after skool channels lectures also helped me form my ideas.

I think an outline of the events of this film would be helpful: it takes place in a forest that is run as a police state where the citizens are supposedly being protected from nameless creatures that roam the forest. They are monitored at all times by CCTV cameras in the trees, through which most of the film is viewed. The state is run by a Pharmaceutical Corporation, who’s aim is to exploit the citizens in as many ways as possible, putting them under stress to up the sales of their anti anxiety and anti depressant pills, and putting them in a constant work environment due to the constant streaming of the show. This constant stress, the subduing nature of the pills and the encouragement to rest makes the citizens passive enough to be compliant to the state/ company’s control. The demonisation of the ‘other’ (the nameless mute characters) contributes to the stress that they are under whilst also keeping them as a contained unit with limited mobility.

Throughout the first episode, the characters exist only within their designated frames, with no communication between them. This isolation is another form of altered consciousness that the state use to reduce the chance of outburst and keep them compliant to the system of work they are part of. However, at the end of episode 233, Toothhead gets hold of a blue lotus flower, a psychedelic, which is the thing the state fears most. This is due to it acting as an alternative to their pills which causes long term healing, which would make their business go bankrupt. When Toothhead takes it, helped by phone communications from Lello, the characters leave their frames for the first time, and they learn to coexist with the nameless characters and realise that they can coexist with their demons and their absurdity.

However, like in all police states, this world has a guards system, who can be seen arresting and capturing nameless characters and using them to terrorise Goggles to keep them under stress, as well as using their presence as a punishment, reinforcing the association of the nameless with fear. When Goggles leaves their frame, they can me seen tentatively observing a mute character from a distance, and being observed back. Whilst the characters are snatched by guards and reordered by the end of the film, and certainly punished suggested my the name of the next episode, it is unlikely that order will ever be fully restored after the group the citizens are threatened by and supposedly protected from by the state are proven harmless, having their humanity restored.

Dr Guarden is the face of the company and owner of the woods, with their name in all the credits and the title, proclaiming them owner of the woods. This character is also the narrator. However, it is likely that this is only the face of the organisation, with the running of the state benefitting a whole group who are unseen.

There is some deeper lore to this world, suggested by the bits of skin, eyes, thumbs and stuffing being preserved in the woods. It is also the citizens job to function as a factory line in with these items are used. This is the will of the Morner, who is referenced only in the last line of the prayer like bedtime story told to Toothhead. This system is a result of morning after the Gardener, who’s skin, green thumbs and other bits are being preserved to be reassembled. The static creature seen between episodes 232 and 233 is the morner, using the state as part sadistic hobby and part system to rebuild their lost companion, who was the balancing force in the woods before they dies. The woods before their death were a balance of good an evil, whereas now the Morner has run wild, creating the state in the Gardener’s honour and naming the face of it after them ( Dr Gurden).

The suppressing drugs and sleepiness of the woods, as well as the stress citizens are under, are necessary for the Morner to invade minds and influence the world as puppet master. The lotus flowers are forbidden both to enable this effect and also because the Morner believes that if they are used as stuffing for the reassembled flesh of the Gardener they can be revived. Whether this is true or not is dubious, but either way the flowers can only be grown by the Gardener, so are also a rare resource and protected by law against citizen use. The woods are in a state of morning, with citizens only allowed to wear black and an interval of grief mandatory in each episode.

https://youtu.be/XedV5nvVTdo

Crow 64 ARG

Crow 64 or Catastrophe Crow is an ARG communicated through a number of means, including several fake YouTube channels, email addresses, game making folders and of course the game play itself. The depth of the world building by the director of this game is incredible, shown by the great efforts of the audience to decode it. I think this reliance on the viewers to unpick the story hidden beneath the first interaction with the piece is indicative of the extent of engagement possible with this world, and the fact that so many committed themselves to uncovering the world shows how effective it is.

Poster props

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vZpBcEa0UdaEMLodGuloduzGDvzI_gz6pvIczeE3I9U/edit

Concept art for Narrator’s pharmaceuticals

https://youtu.be/HWS-0vuleZg

Sound and sculpture piece

DOON KANDA

Synth and visual artists

“The adult is the conscious mind, and the child is the unconscious. The state of creation is mostly driven by the child, with the adult coming in here and there to help the child—maybe with the technical side of things.”

This quote from interview with Joe Muggs has reshaped how I perceive my own art. I have been trying to make my ideas concrete without really asking myself why I am making my work. The house especially feels in retrospect as an attempt to create a safe space to immerse myself in the process of realising how uncertain and harsh the real world is.

Serial Experiement Lain:

A psychological cyber punk anime exploring the internet dystopia ideas circulating in the 90s. Whilst I make no claims of understanding quite what occurred in this anime, I find the exploration of religion relevant to my work. I always find it interesting when fiction explores new interpretations of religion, and in this show God is neither timeless or good, coming into existence with the birth of the new world made by the internet. This god has an motive to collapse the boundaries between the ‘wired’ and the real world, creating Lain as a program to do so.

I have been building my current world surrounding the blurred lines of religion and pop culture. Personally, I know more people who believe in the matrix than the main Abrahamic faiths. I think it’s worth considering the role that new stories can have in providing answers to the same questions that religions do, often with more persuasive answers. I’m sure that, if the media we consume today was found in the same form as the bible, rewritten by different people just as films are remade by new directors, it could plausibly be interpreted as prophecy or truth.

My initial inspirations for GUTSHAUS was children’s toys and eutpoias. I feel that, if treated by the viewer as toys, the figure sculptures in this piece could be engaged with in a different way, inhabiting a mental imagination space as well as a physical one. I tried to create a tactile environment for them to live in, using textures including rocks, sponges, plastics, and wire. I also made a path leading through the fabric ‘fort’ the haus is in from different materials sewn onto fabric, such as bank notes (expired), playing cards, circuitry, plastic and wrappers. This was to add to the tactility of the piece, as it has to be sat on the engage with the figures.

I have called this piece the GUTSHAUS, as GUTS is a fictional brand my characters where, a motif I have used in my work for a while. I thought it’d be fitting to add this house to the franchise as a nod to the Barbie dolls and how they straddled the zones of toys and brands, with the dolls often emulating models. My intensions behind this piece and the BEBEMODLS piece was to replace to sexualised and gender confined image of Barbie with ‘generic anthropomorphs’, with their absence of gender norms and beauty standards.

When making this piece, I imagined it as a micro-utopia, with the characters having just stumbled upon it one day and decided to stay as In many myths of utopias. They have and agreement with the landlord, who lives on the third floor, that as long as they keep bringing new treasures, they can stay. They shelf is an archive of what they have bought home so far, and the landlord keeps the shiniest treasures in their cave.

After my tutorial with Jala, I have decided that my work could benefit from stripping back the details. I want my coming work to have fewer components that imply more. I am going to use sound to focus on atmosphere rather than relying on maximising visual content.