[HN Gopher] Auroratone, a psychedelic 1940s film that helped WWI...
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Auroratone, a psychedelic 1940s film that helped WWII vets overcome
PTSD
Author : ZunarJ5
Score : 194 points
Date : 2023-11-23 01:03 UTC (21 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.openculture.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.openculture.com)
| dieselgate wrote:
| This brought a smile to my face. Very quaint compared to what we
| consider psychedelic today but soothing
| handy2000 wrote:
| Visually it's not that different from a lot of current
| psychedelic imagery. E.g. the Eurorack video synthesis scene.
|
| The creators most likely took inspiration from their personal
| experiences smoking reefers (probably too early for psilocybin
| considering it's 1940s, but possible too!).
| 0xDEADFED5 wrote:
| there's always mescaline!
|
| https://hermetic.com/parsons/i-hight-don-quixote-i-live-on-p...
| handy2000 wrote:
| Oh right! Mescaline became known in the US artistic and
| scientific circles a bit earlier than psilocybin.
| fsiefken wrote:
| "Neo: You ever have that feeling where you're not sure if
| you're awake or still dreaming? Choi: All the time. It's
| called mescaline, it's the only way to fly"
|
| -- The Matrix https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdAMq5LdAvs
|
| Isolated in 1896 and synthesized in 1919. Havelock Ellis
| described the use of cactus Anhalonium lewinii, or mescal
| button by Kiowa Indians (New Mexico) in "Mescal: A New
| Artificial Paradise" (1898). Aldous Huxley took mescaline for
| the first time on May 3, 1953 and subsequently wrote about it
| in Doors of Perception (1954) and Heaven and Hell (1956). Jim
| Morrison co-founded The Doors, named after Huxley's book, in
| July 1965 in Los Angeles, California. He formed the band with
| Ray Manzarek, whom he met at the UCLA School of Theater, Film
| and Television when they were both students.
|
| Carlos Castaneda, himself a kind of enigma and his books
| controversial wrote his first book shortly after, "The
| Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge," published
| in 1968,
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Very cool. I'm not seeing an obvious connection between the audio
| and the visuals (I do see some kind of differences between the
| visuals for the organ solo vs. the rest of the song).
|
| I can't believe no one has recreated the machine though. Perhaps
| someone will now.
|
| Someone's HTML5 ... tribute?
| https://bits.ashleyblewer.com/portable-auroratone/?loclr=blo...
| Stratoscope wrote:
| I don't think the visuals were derived directly from the audio
| track played with them in the film. The article has a good
| description:
|
| > _[Stokes'] procedure was to cut a tape recorded melody into
| short segments and splice the resulting pieces into tape loops.
| The audio signal from the first loop was sent to a radio
| transmitter. The radio waves from the radio transmitter were
| confined to a tube and focused up through a glass slide on
| which he had placed a chemical mixture. The radio waves would
| interact with the solution and trigger the formation of the
| crystals. In this way each slide would develop a shape
| interpretive of the loop of music it had been exposed to. Each
| loop, in sequence, would be converted to a slide. Eventually a
| set of slides would be completed that was the natural
| interpretation of the complete musical melody._
| cylinder714 wrote:
| The bit about tape loops sounds _exactly_ like something
| Brian Eno experimented with. I 'll check my bookmarks.
| cosmojg wrote:
| Didya find it?
| cylinder714 wrote:
| No. Maybe a web search..."Brian Eno tape loop"
|
| I think this it:
|
| _How Brian Eno Created Ambient 1: Music for Airports_
| https://reverbmachine.com/blog/deconstructing-brian-eno-
| musi...
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| That looks familiar - it was posted on HN a year ago:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33172448
| Animats wrote:
| The actual patent is more useful.
|
| It's kind of a kaleidoscope where the moving crystals are
| fused into a solid mass, creating a fixed slide.The energy
| for fusing the crystals can come from either big lamps
| (carbon arcs are suggested) or an RF heater. Plus there's an
| air compressor in there to blow air into the thing to cool
| the material and stir things up. Then there are two
| projectors, which take turns displaying two slides.
|
| It belongs to the class of devices for which the technology
| didn't really exist yet to do it right, but somebody managed
| to kludge a prototype into working. See "Telharmonium"[1]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telharmonium
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I assumed the tape-recorded melody _was_ the Crosby song.
| Perhaps not.
| Stratoscope wrote:
| This freaked me out. I saw ten creatures that wanted to eat me!
| And a few ghostly skeletal humanoids.
|
| That was from watching it on my little phone screen. I don't want
| to imagine what would happen if I saw it on a real movie screen.
|
| Maybe I should quit drugs. Or start using drugs. Or something.
|
| Anything to make the monsters go away!
| whalesalad wrote:
| I'm a regular consumer of <insert drug here> and this video did
| absolutely nothing to me. It would make a great screensaver.
|
| Perhaps if I was on a few grams of psilocybin... but sober it's
| really just ambient art with good ol bing crosby.
| hypertele-Xii wrote:
| Can you comment on these?
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IU5MYV0CtpU
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERPlfZn8JwE
|
| Experimental art videos of similar sort I made a while back.
| wruza wrote:
| Yep, something always helps.
|
| My visions were also mostly dangerous or about life eating
| itself.
| lolive wrote:
| I prefer that one:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghDlYgvod9k
| lolive wrote:
| Btw, if you know and love that _legendary_ track, here is a
| making-of video, by Franky Jones:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otckQ0zXmbM&t=990s
| lolive wrote:
| Wow that escalated quickly. The recommendation engine of
| Youtube now identified me as a techno-hippie:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj5ZDfGGazM
| jbl0ndie wrote:
| Looks very similar to the Optikinetics Crystal Pulse product that
| is sadly no longer commercially available. Pretty niche lighting
| effect I encountered in the mid 90s. It was outdated even then.
| https://youtu.be/XuxZ7_lAhK8?si=TT-6WXfT5c4cvJGN
| cosmojg wrote:
| Wow, yeah, that is strikingly similar! The video in the
| submission seems a little more dynamic, though, and a bit more
| relaxing.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Another comment mentioned the two projectors in the patent --
| and based also on the "reminds me on an aurora" mentioned in
| the article, I suspect it's a kind of slow crossfade between
| the "slides" that makes the Auroratone more relaxing.
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| I checked out some of the other videos and their website and
| this looks really cool. I've attempted liquid light shows with
| an overhead projector and can never get it to turn out right.
| These liquid discs look like an easy alternative for a similar
| effect.
| jbl0ndie wrote:
| They are excellent for that yes! There are a few people
| making unofficial wheels too that you can find on eBay.
|
| Here's a discussion about an outdoor called Fruit Salad Light
| Show that used a bunch of Optikinetics gear for shows in the
| 90's that might also interest you.
| https://ozrics.proboards.com/thread/2204/light-show
| jlarcombe wrote:
| See also "Innerstrings" (Chris Tomsett) who has a vast
| arsenal of Optikinetics gear that he uses along with live
| video processing. Really great.
|
| https://www.instagram.com/innerstrings/
| jbl0ndie wrote:
| Good shout. I was going to mention him but couldn't find
| any video of his oil wheel work. His combination of
| analogue and digital is really nice.
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| Both of these links are very cool and now I'm doing some
| eBay browsing
| teddyh wrote:
| Looks like The Andromeda Strain.
| virgulino wrote:
| No crystals, but artificial neural networks:
|
| Somatik Blues https://youtu.be/crZ4myW0xVw
|
| Neverendingstory https://youtu.be/OGyzWyH8Hi8
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| The "the screen is still zooming" effect I'm getting after
| watching 2 minutes of the second one is fun. I hope it stops
| soon, though. >smile<
| ddmf wrote:
| Going to give this early EMDR a wee try later.
| amelius wrote:
| Was this used in conjunction with other methods, e.g. substances?
| herunan wrote:
| I actually feel quite relaxed after watching this. Mostly because
| of the song choice, but visuals were also interesting.
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(page generated 2023-11-23 23:02 UTC)