The Psychedelic Video Museum is the world’s first museum of psychedelic art and video. It is the fruit of a decade long effort which began in April 2010, and the foundation of the Daily Psychedelic Video, a group blog that’s been serving the internet it’s daily menu of selectively curated psychedelic videos from across the web.
The videos on this website were carefully selected from within the Daily Psychedelic Video collections of more than 4,000 videos that were posted on the website between April 2010 and April 2020. Together, they constitute the first ever attempt to showcase the variety and creativity of psychedelic video artists from across the globe, since early 20th century and to this day.
You can roam our virtual exhibition halls choosing to advance chronologically, from early 20th century psychedelia to this day, or by region, by exploring global hotspots of psychedelic creativity such as Germany, France, China, Japan and Israel. Alternatively, you can also explore psychedelic videos of different themes, styles and moods: feelgood psychedelia, contemplative psychedelia, marine psychedelia, poppy psychedelia or hip-hop psychedelia.
Whichever way you decide to move through these collections, be sure to do so in an explorative psychedelic frame of mind. These videos are a mindstate-dependent form of art. They don’t have to be viewed under the influence to be enjoyed, but they dramatically benefit from a relaxed, fanciful, contemplative gaze which allows the shapes and colors on the screen to resonate in our minds and bodies.
Some examples
Everyday Objects In Macro – Macro Room
A mind-bending video shows the reality of everyday object in extreme close-up.
A BOX with Secret (Шкатулка с секретом) – Valery Uragov (1976) An awesomely psychedelic yellow-submarine-style soviet animation from 1976.
APOGEE／Spring Stranger - スプリング·ストレンジャー Awesome, elevating video by Japanese group Apogee
My…MY… – Lei Lei (2011) A person wakes up naked and embarks on a strange journey
MGMT – When You Die (2017) A morbid but stunning and impeccably done video by MGMT. Directed by (Mike Burakoff & Hallie Cooper-Novack).
Hashish – The Drug of a Nation – Boom Pam A song by Israeli band Boom Pam.
Jeff Minter: Heart of Neon ou cannot talk about psychedelic video games without talking about Jeff Minter. Teaser for the documentary Heart of Neon about the legendary game designer (by Paul Docherty).
Katamari Damacy All cutscenes from the remaster of 2004’s trippy classic Katamari Damacy.
Berg – Kanahebi (2015) Animated marine life forms. Animated by Hideki Inaba.
Apart of the current divisive populist politics in this 2020, there is this widening gap that seems to separate the past i.e. these last years of microbiome and holobiont revelations, the recognition of Lynn Margulis’s life’s work, of probiotics, craft beers, hipster sourdough homemade bread, super-bugs multi-resistance warnings – and the sudden ramping up of antibacterial soaps production and biocidal technologies. While invisible for much of mankind’s history and ultimately relegated to imaginary beings, demons, spirits – bacteria and viruses (not to talk about mushroom, molds and their kin) have been with us, in and on us since the beginning and while their profile is rising for the first time, enriching our schlock ‘blob’ B-movie repertoire (our heightened sense of contagion is already indistinguishable from general online virality). As an aside in our management-drenched culture, I might add that the very start-up culture of late capitalism, of venture capital and tech unicorns (TESLA, Google, Amazon etc) – overshadows another use of the term “starter” – maybe its initial, dirty secret embedded in its biological anb biosemiotic material sense, the one in which there is always something antecedent, some highly transmissible starter-culture, a microbial mat that has preceded all ulterior divisions, ever evolving invasions, and upon which back everything else grows, blooms, and who’s metabolic pathways and chemical chain reactions we enjoy, inherit, borrow or dread. There is scope in just having a look into the various questions raised by scientist regarding this undercover complexity that animates much of what we regard as the most basic, simple (and thence falsely simplistic) and mostly still highly disregarded (non charismatic) organisms.
With current rising ‘Pandemic Fatigue’ and governments searching for new ways to variously entice and/or enforce effective restrictions and contact tracing technologies, one should balance it out with the work of Rob Dunn (check out his classic The Wild Life of Our Bodies: Predators, Parasites, and Partners That Shape Who We Are Today), Dr. Anne A. Madden (The Kingdom documentary which I urge u to see), Sandor Katz (Wild Fermentation primer), Athena Aktipis (applying system biology and evo-devo to cancer research). They and a bunch of other wonderful people at NC State University’s Department of Applied Ecology including Lauren Nichols, Erin McKenney under self-isolation measures have organized this year’s incredible series of webinars concerning FERMENTOLOGY – the incredible shapeshifting science of fermentation, ‘umami’ taste with a motley crew honing changing practices, field research experience, trough labs and out of lab works, trough ancient history archaeology and multispecies coreographies in humans and non-humans.
As a fellow practitioner and fermentation necromancer, putrescient beginner and bacterealist I urge you to check out these free seminars below. Climate science outreach has become a caricature of struggling to reach the decision makers, an important lesson in loosing its touch with an increasingly disdainful and aggressively non-scientific (or not sufficiently scientific) crowd (including politicians) . yet microbiology and fermentology offers hope in the sense that it has became highly pop – both in bad (as every hype can witness) and good example of translatable, relatable, surprisingly material gooey way of exploring new and exciting discoveries that somehow have a two pronged way: both home kitchen and highly rated chef restaurateur, both laboratory oriented outcomes and field work, both insider talk and informing day to day people’s experiences. While heeding all the warning signs of the groomed bearded sourdough hipster (mostly male bro type) guy – and his newfound hobby in its breadtivist breadarian accusatory tinge – it is still a fact that such slimy, sticky gooey (almost in tandem with the slime – kids videos) have raised the profile of wild fermentation online around the globe. Partly industrial knowledge, partly hype, partly a blob of big pharma and wild fermentation bio hacking type of exchanges – its troublesome and meddling prospects prosper at the edge of traditional knowledge expropriation and biocapitalisation and/or speculative biological experimentation.
Deep Time Background + take it with a grain: Maybe grasslands should be seen as the first in a series of new warming earth changes at the geologic scale – that started happening roughly 20 mil yr ago (accelerating incredibly nowadays due to human herd in tow with other herds that have been replacing dwindling forests environments) and have included co-evolved multiple stomachs, specific enzymes from grass and grain digesting yeasts and bacteria). While mostly growing around bread and sourdough, these webinars have been more than diverse – encompassing cheese, milk etc You will say ahhhhhh AGAIN the grain-grass eater ecosystemic bias – well yes, grass again (!!) in an age of steppes, grasslands, lawns, dwindling forests and high yield crops – the haunt of all those Neolithic revolutionaries. Well grasses and ruminants are here to stay so we better learn and ruminate along. In spite of gluten free authoritarianism bread keeps diversifying and going in unsuspected directions. And so not any grain is on the menu, so one might also see here a Western- North /Near-Eastern/Fertile Crescent bias towards a particular kind of grain products (so not so much about rice culture and rice wine fermentation – or pickling such as jiu niang (酒酿) or miso using koji.
A few of the highlights for me (although please consider watching all of them since they are very much in tune to what I mentioned above):
Jessica (Jessie) Hendy is a lecturer in paleoproteomics at the University of York where she studies ancient proteins associated with foods in archaeological sites. Jessie will describe her research at ancient archaeological sites in Turkey, Mongolia and elsewhere to understand, using ancient protein analyses, the beginnings of milk fermentation. She will take viewers on a journey to one of her archaeological sites, describe her approach to archaeology and consider take homes from her work with regard to what anyone can do in their kitchen with milk today.
Jessie has recently made major discoveries with regard to the history of Mongolian dairying and dairy fermentation and the oldest dairy fermentation in the world. This talk is sponsored and supported by the Max Planck Institute’s ERC-funded project, Dairy Cultures. (YT description)
Margarita López-Uribe is the Lorenzo L. Langstroth Early Career Professor at Pennsylvania State University’s Department of Entomology where she studies bees of many kinds. Many bees rely on fermentation in different ways (some ferment nectar, others pollen, others still ferment leaves). Margarita will talk about the fermentation carried out by honeybees. Honeybees make bread out of pollen that they ferment (and then feed to their babies). Margarita and her student Brooke talk about what goes into making bee bread and what microbes are involved in this process. They will also share preliminary data of an ongoing project about how various biocides shape bee bread microbiome.
This talk is supported and promoted by the NC State Apiculture Program.(YT)
In many parts of the world, especially in regions with limited growing seasons and long winters, people preserve vegetables through fermentation. Learn about the illustrious history of fermented vegetables, the science behind it, and how simple it is to ferment vegetables yourself at home. This talk is hosted by Sandor Ellix Katz, a fermentation revivalist. His books Wild Fermentation and The Art of Fermentation, along with the hundreds of fermentation workshops he has taught around the world, have helped to catalyze a broad revival of the fermentation arts. A self-taught experimentalist who lives in rural Tennessee, the New York Times calls him “one of the unlikely rock stars of the American food scene.” S
andor is the recipient of a James Beard award and other honors.(YT)
How does fermentation fit into your zombie apocalypse preparation plan? Fermenting can provide a number of benefits – from enhancing the nutritional value of your food, to preserving it for the long haul, to cultivating antimicrobial compounds that might help protect you from the agents of the zombie apocalypse. Fermented foods are also an example of multi-species cooperation that might serve as a good example for us all for how we might cooperate to survive the zombie apocalypse.
Athena Aktipis is an assistant professor of psychology at Arizona State University, chair of the Zombie Apocalypse Medicine Alliance, and co-director of the Human Generosity Project. She is the author of the new book The Cheating Cell from Princeton University Press and the host of the science podcast Zombified.(YT)
Tate Paulette is an archaeologist and Assistant Professor at NC State’s Department of History. He studies agriculture, food, and fermentation in the ancient world, with a particular focus on Bronze Age Mesopotamia. He co-directs archaeological excavations at the site of Makounta-Voules-Mersinoudia in Cyprus (Makounta-Voules Archaeological Project), and he is currently working on a book about the history/archaeology of beer in Mesopotamia. In this talk, we will explore the foods and, especially, the fermented foods of ancient Mesopotamia. We will look at ancient recipes, royal inscriptions, administrative records, archaeological remains, artistic works, and more on our culinary tour through the famous “land between the rivers.” Particular attention will be devoted to bread, beer, yogurt, and cheese, the fermented cornerstones of the Mesopotamian diet.
This talk is co-sponsored by NC State’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences.(YT)
In this talk, Benjamin Wolfe will explore how microbes compete and cooperate in cheese rind microbiomes. From fungal highways on wheels of Saint Nectaire to antibiotic producing fungi in cheddar, we’ll learn about the ecology and chemistry of microbial interactions in some of your favorite stinky cheeses. We will also learn how cheesemakers can use this knowledge of microbial interactions to improve the safety and quality of their products. Benjamin Wolfe is the Aptman Family Assistant Professor of microbiology at Tufts University.
The Wolfe Lab at Tufts uses fermented foods as model systems to identify the processes that shape the diversity of microbiomes. In addition to research focused on the basic biology of microbes, the Wolfe lab has worked with chefs and food producers, including David Chang’s Momofuku Culinary Lab and Jasper Hill Farms, to understand the roles of microbes in creating the diversity of flavors in fermented foods. This talk is co-sponsored by NC State’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences. (YT)
The origins of bread have long been associated with the development of farming communities that first cultivated and domesticated cereals in the Fertile Crescent 10,000 years ago. However, most recent discoveries show that bread was not a product of farming, but perhaps something which fuelled it. Amaia and Lara will share the story of the discovery of the oldest bread and what we do and don’t know about its recipe, how it was baked and more. They will also talk about the cereal-based foodstuffs that prehistoric communities consumed in southwest Asia and how they changed with the development of new technologies such as pottery.
Amaia Arranz Otaegui is Assistant Professor at the University of Copenhagen. She is an archaeobotanist and investigates the use and consumption of plants by prehistoric hunter-gatherers and early farming communities in southwest Asia. Lara Gonzalez Carretero is an archaeobotanist at the Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) and a researcher at the Scientific Department of the British Museum. She is an expert on the study of archaeological food remains, with especial interest in cereal meals such as bread, porridge, etc. (YT)
The world’s oldest culinary recipes exist in the form of clay tablets from ancient Babylonia dating to the 18th century BCE. In this talk, Patricia Jurado, Gojko Barjamovic and Pia Sörensen from Harvard University will introduce the history and science of the recipes, as well as their team’s efforts interpreting and reproducing them. Their work follows an experimental approach and draws on expertise from their team’s collective backgrounds in assyriology, the life sciences, and culinary practice and history. Join us for this deep dive into culinary history — you may even come away knowing how to cook a 4,000 year old recipe!
Part of the 2020 BEESS seminar series: Wildlife microbiomes, the complex communities of microorganisms that inhabit virtually every body site, perform countless micro-ecosystem services for their host, profoundly affecting wildlife behavior, physiology, reproduction, health, survival and ultimately evolution.
To study these tightly co-evolved systems, I strive to build diverse and collaborative interdisciplinary research teams to (a) advance our knowledge of the eco-evolutionary factors (e.g., sex, diet, phylogeny) governing wildlife-associated microbiomes, (b) identify species-specific microbiomes that can serve as sentinels for environmental quality (i.e., biomarkers for wildlife population health), (c) evaluate the impact of environmental perturbations on wildlife microbiome functions, and (d) inform management decisions to promote long-term conservation of wildlife and their symbiotic microbes.(YT)
The world’s oldest culinary recipes exist in the form of clay tablets from ancient Babylonia dating to the 18th century BCE. In this talk, Patricia Jurado, Gojko Barjamovic and Pia Sörensen from Harvard University will introduce the history and science of the recipes, as well as their team’s efforts interpreting and reproducing them. Their work follows an experimental approach and draws on expertise from their team’s collective backgrounds in assyriology, the life sciences, and culinary practice and history. Join us for this deep dive into culinary history — you may even come away knowing how to cook a 4,000 year old recipe!
#The team that conducted this research includes: + Patricia Jurado Gonzalez (Research Scholar, Harvard University), + Gojko Barjamovic (Senior Lecturer on Assyriology, Harvard University), + Pia Sörensen (Senior Preceptor in Chemical Engineering and Applied Materials, SEAS, Harvard University), + Chelsea Alene Graham (Digital Imaging Specialist at the Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage, Yale University), + Agnete Wisti Lassen (Associate Curator of the Yale Babylonian Collection, Yale University), + Nawal Nasrallah (Culinary historian, author, chef) (YT)
timespace coordinates: ancient China where monsters lived side by side with humans.
directed by Raman Hui
Monster Hunt is a mainland China-Hong Kong 3D action fantasy comedy adventure film. It became a success breaking many box office records, including being the highest grossing movie in China.
Always wanted to see Monster Hunt since its release after watching a Chinese trailer but never quite managing to trace it. It felt bizarre, disconcerting, zany and now in retrospect almost closer to the 3D feel of the Animal Liberation Front fable Okja by Bong Joon-ho. To me it is interesting to compare or contrast Monster Hunt with other animation productions of Raman Hui who has several important contributions to his credit starting with a Simpsons episode, Antz, work on Shrek and several other 3D animation and computer graphics hits. It is at once it is a transnational work – witness to Raman Hui Hong-Kong, Canada & Silicon Valley working experience, proof of the “convergence culture”(Henry Jenkins) with a seamless integration of gaming, CGI, character design, merchandise fandom conventions and yet there is other things as well. Post-production was done in Beijing almost exclusively with only a few works done in Taiwan.
I found it interesting in regard to all the departures from usual or all the mentioned canon DreamWorks and MIB inspiration that had supposedly influenced it (as the director acknowledges). In fact the movie also tries to vaguely (admittedly) try to use the ancient mythological geography Classic of Mountains and Seas 山海经 basically a compendium of the fabulous creatures, beings and entities of pre-Qin dynasty China, roughly from the period of the Warring States to the beginning of the Han dynasty – consider the first golden age of the Chinese civilization. It is full of various medicines, animals and fantastic geographical description (550 mountains and 330 channels). Truly an ancient Chinese bestiary – it is a collective encyclopedic work, one that had contribution from various sorcerers/folk medicine women and men as well as the later Fangshi (“method master” translatable as alchemist, geomancer, magician, omenologist, mountbank, wizard, thaumaturge etc). Taoist fangshi are present in many martial arts (wuxia) Chinese movies but here there is cross-over with the role of the exorcist. Maybe it does not actually manage – and in the end we have another toy, another easily theme parked CGI character modeled by the pressure of actually selling it or replicating it as merch. Nevertheless it is worth moving further ahead.
There are in contrast with other Western monster movies several divergences. In fact it might be part of a more open inhuman outlook on the world, which is felt in both block buster as well as indie SciFi comedies. In part it is changing from the inside, from within the form itself, as defined by stalwarts of the new weird China Miéville (Kraken) and Jeff VanderMeer (The Southern Reach trilogy, Borne, Dead Astronauts etc) that has been opening new monster friendly vistas and teratologic ecosystems. Monster Hunt is not so much a Hunt as a way to protect and learn to live (even bear – become surrogate mother to a monster).
The movie bends the gender roles and keeps at its center the friendship of humans, ex-hunters with the monsters, human-as-monsters and monstrous-humans – in fact one such important hunter of the monster hunter guild actually takes the side of the monster and swears to protect them keeping them hidden or under cover (monster can shapeshift) as villagers. There are inter-monster succession wars, there is a renegade ‘evil’ (although evil is hardly the proper word to describe overall these fairly violent monsters) that heads the guild and actually controls a restaurant – specifically catering to the whims of the upper class. This restaurant functions exactly like such real examples of restaurant of medicinal-nutritional establishments in Chinese culture promise fertility and long life using various animals, roots, minerals. So in a way it is critical of the wet market tradition as well as the traffic of exotic and rare animals – “monsters” that are being shipped and illegally traded using international trade routes for a lot of money. The female huntress – is much more of heroine than the recent Mulan adaptation that is been called out as a case of ‘failed empowerment’. Huo Xiaolan (Bai Bai He one of the biggest Chinese stars) is the leading figure clearly – a true strong female movie character if there is one without paying tribute to the patriarchal tradition. She not only faces tremendous odds and saves the male hero’s ass several times but also reverses most stereotypes of the martial arts movies. Her counterpart the villager inheritor – is himself comic relief in comparison with her. He also gets to be pregnant with the baby monster with Huo Xiaolan helping him along the way as a midwife and paying for his tremendous appetites. He is also gets attached to the monster baby and vice-versa and refuses to deliver him at pain of death ot the highest bidder. He is a lame, literally so, has a foot disability (while at the same time an important giveaway sign, a blemish of the shaman, mountebank or trickster). In fact the main male actor had to be changed and 70% of the movie re-shot, since the initial choice, a young Taiwanese actor was embroiled in some drug abuse scandal with the Chinese authorities. The next choice actually refused to take a salary just to see the movie get done as a favor to Hui Raman.
While the monsters have been described as much too wobbly, the acting and action as completely over the top – one should see it also trough the eyes of this 2020 COVID year’s Chinese attempts to curb and further regulate wet markets as well as the connection btw animal welfare, animal farming and pandemic spillovers. The political historical trope of the rightful dynastic heir and heinous courtly eunuch or minister – has a long history in classic Chinese movie, opera and literature, and so it seems to reappear in the monster succession wars. Monster Gunt goes boldly against the meat- dishes and even treats veggies as soul-inhabited. At the restaurant we also have the famous chef scene – one of my overall favorites that tries to fry, cut, steam Wuba (the little monster King) and fails to do so – since it, like the Monkey King seems to only get stronger or to get fortified by these alchemical -nutritional transformations. Also a characteristic of Wuba – is his plant like appearance, in fact most of the time little Wuba looks like a little Mandragora (a Solanaceae a nightshade not a Brassicaceae like the radish) – is colored or even nicknamed as radish (with various Chinese, Korean, Japanese heirloom varieties). Here is a funny and bizarre Japanese collection of netizen antropomorphic Daikon radishes on markets, gardens and people’s houses.
bailuobo (白蘿蔔) in Mandarin or lobak in CantoneseVarieties of Raphanus raphanistrum subsp. sativus from the Seikei Zusetsu agricultural-encyclopedia
illustration of Nüwa from the Classic of Mountain and Seas 山海经
timespace coordinates: around 2001-2013, inspired by precise recent events in contemporary China, its vignettes take place in vastly different settings from bustling southern metropolis of Guangzhou and Dongguan to the more rural townships in the province of Shanxi.
directed by Zhangke Jia
“The film draws on the history of wuxia stories. The title in Chinese, 天注定 (Tian zhuding) is literally translated as “heavenly fate” or “fated doom,” while its English title is a reference to King Hu‘s 1971 action epic A Touch of Zen, one of the most influential wuxia films.
It revolves around four threads set in vastly different geographical and social milieus across modern-day China.
timespace coordinates: 2001 till about 2017 in the city of Datong bordering with Inner Mongolia, an old mining city that now has become poor since the price of coal dropped and then in the province of Hubei in central China where the city of Wuhan lies.
“It was selected to compete for the Palme d’Or at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival. The story is loosely based on the leader of a gang from Jia Zhangke’s childhood, whom he had admired as a role model.”(wiki)
“A story of violent love within a time frame spanning from 2001 to 2017.”(imdb)
timespace coordinates: somewhere in the present or near future in the city of Kaili in the southeastern province of Guizhou, People’s Republic of China.
Bi Gan was born in Kaili City in Guizhou Province in June 1989. He is an ethnic Miao.
“The film chronicles the return of Luo Hongwu (Huang Jue) to Kaili, the hometown from which he fled many years before. Back for his father’s funeral, Luo recalls the death of an old friend, Wildcat, and searches for lost love Wan Qiwen (Tang Wei), who continues to haunt him.
Director Bi Gan enlisted novelist Chang Ta-Chun as a consultant for the script, noting that Ta-Chun aided in the overall film structure as well as the division of the film into two parts. Of the two parts, Bi noted that “the title of the first part is Memory; that of the second is Poppy, in reference to Paul Celan’s poem Poppy and Memory. At some point, I even considered using this as the film’s title.”[7]
Bi stated that “I liked the idea that the first half would be in 2D, because I wanted it to feel as fragmented as time, with little bits of memory… With the second half, I wanted it to be real-time, and the 3D was the best way to create a spatial experience for that.” The 59-minute unbroken long take 3D sequence that closes the film took two months to prepare, as techniques had to be devised to move a RED camera through the complicated environment of the scene. It took seven attempts at shooting the sequence before Bi was satisfied.[8] The sequence was shot in 2D and converted to 3D in post-production because a 2D camera was lighter and therefore easier to move in difficult positions and small environments.
Bi drew inspiration for the film from the paintings of Marc Chagall, specifically The Promenade, as well as the novels of Patrick Modiano.”
(wiki)
“Many critics praised the final, hour- long dream sequence which was filmed in one continuous take. In his 4/4 star review for The Boston Globe, critic Ty Burr compared the sequence to his own dreams, noting that they are often “unsettling, unstoppable, and yet there’s often a logic within their illogic. This is precisely what Bi has re-created in the final hour of “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” a fluid and outrageously extended camera shot that, as with dreams, doesn’t need editing to cast its spell.”(wiki)
TimeSpace Warps 