{"id":4193,"date":"2016-01-03T04:34:33","date_gmt":"2016-01-03T04:34:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/astoryisnotatree.net\/?p=4193"},"modified":"2018-08-01T17:33:39","modified_gmt":"2018-08-01T17:33:39","slug":"project-1-hallucination-room-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/astoryisnotatree.net\/?p=4193","title":{"rendered":"Playable Buildings: Hallucination Room"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Hallucination<\/a>
A frame of my hallucination room projection engages with the space<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I grounded my thoughts for this project in two fragments of theory:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe future is necessarily monstrous, the figure of the future, that is, that which can only be surprising, that for which we are not prepared, you see, is heralded by a species of monsters. A future that would not be monstrous would not be a future; it would already be predictable, calculable, and programmable tomorrow.\u201d – Jacques Derrida<\/p>\n

\u201cThe logic of monsters is one of particulars, not essences. Each monster exists in a class by itself. Monsters may, however, generate entire classes of beings.\u201d – Alan Weiss, <\/span>10 Theses on Monsters and Monstrosity<\/span><\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I. Research<\/strong><\/p>\n

With the paradoxically linked concepts of uncertainty and specificity in my mind, I embarked on a lot of research. In Angela\u2019s words, I \u201cate culture\u201d \u2013 I examined the work of horror aficionados, fans of monsters, and various public artists for cues on how to bring my passionate appreciation of these theories into artistic reality. I watched <\/span>Pan\u2019s Labyrinth <\/span><\/i>and the entire first season of True Detective, scoured Guillermo del Toro\u2019s Twitter feed for vintage monster illustrations and film recommendations, read the first three chapters of <\/span>Frankenstein<\/span><\/i>, gouged myself on Hans Bellmer photographs, and read arabellesicardi.com\/tagged\/girlmonstering<\/a> from start to finish. <\/span><\/p>\n

I found myself fascinated with the grotesque\u2019s presence in horror, and with horror\u2019s palpable foundation in the viscerality of the everyday. I focused on the feeling on the back of your skin when you see an abomination, something that\u2019s inherently<\/span> wrong<\/span><\/i>. The first abomination that Western civilization tells us about is Cain in the Book of Genesis, who lives with his unnatural act marked on his forehead for the rest of his life; its first introduction\u00a0into modernity is Mary Shelley\u2019s <\/span>Frankenstein<\/span><\/i>; but my first association with that sort of visceral, felt wrongness is the Pale Man in <\/span>Pan\u2019s Labyrinth<\/span><\/i>. Despite how impossible it is that such a creature could exist, it strikes us as real because it is grounded in the realities of the human body. Its lips purse and clench so as to obscure any mouth, its flabby skin hangs from his bones and congeals onto itself in folds, and its head is such a pale, skull white that the red outline of veins and the bloody contour of its nose are the only color visible on it. The Pale Man is an amalgamation of contradictory human characteristics, which are then magnified to the point of horror and then combined into a startling, impossible juxtaposition. The elements that compose the Pale Man are so contrasting as to almost be incongruous, and yet the character design is so grounded in the human body that what should come off as absurd (the swinging of his flabby skin as he chases the girl down the hallway, the incompleteness of his face) is instead absolutely terrifying.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
The Pale Man<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Hallucination<\/a>
My notes on Pan’s Labyrinth and a sketch of the Pale Man<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

II. Theoretical Conclusions<\/strong><\/p>\n

I concluded that the grotesque is powerful <\/span>because<\/span><\/i> of its specificity in riffing off of the material world (please read \u201cmaterial world\u201d in Marx\u2019s terms and not Madonna\u2019s). The details that form the foundation of body horror are familiar to anyone who suffers from the everyday aches, pains, and indignities of having a body. The brilliance of the grotesque is that it channels material conditions into a distortion that still rings true. And while the grotesque and the hallucinatory are distinct, separate entities, they are united in their need for specificity. Hallucination is sibling to the grotesque through their shared parent, mesmerization. Hallucination is poetic, dreamy, while the grotesque is shockingly visceral and specific. Both make a bid for the casual observer\u2019s attention at the subconscious level. As the participant in the grotesque or hallucinatory experience, you\u2019re hypnotized \u2013 more frightened of looking away than of what stays on screen (because the thing that haunts us has the ability to escape the confines of the screen).<\/span><\/p>\n

We are haunted not by the abstract or unknown, I realized, but by specificity \u2013 repetitive and unexplained poetic moments that allude to unarticulated fears much larger than a single image. The line between the grotesque and the hallucinatory is viscera. Hallucination is a whisper; the grotesque is a scream. So if the grotesque is a sculpture \u2013 a visceral, physically felt object \u2013 then a hallucination is a video, an illusion created across the wall of the classroom or a spectre that exists as long as the lights stay off. And I distinguished between them in another very important way – the grotesque is alienating, while the hallucinatory is often pleasant, if unsettling. Sherrie Dobbs, during the class visit to Times Square Alliance, commented that while it\u2019s very easy to use art to make people angry, her interest was in art that asked questions and started a conversation. <\/span>The Handbook for Conjurers<\/span><\/i> tells us that the importance of illusions lies in the fact that they are open to multiple interpretations – in Sherrie Dobbs\u2019 words, that they are conversational. I view hallucinations as art that starts a conversation.<\/span><\/p>\n

III.\u00a0Creating a Visual Narrative<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another important insight I drew from <\/span>The Handbook for Conjurers <\/span><\/i>is the distinction between an illusion and a trick, because an illusion is vested with meaning and connected to the narrative that the conjurer creates, while a trick is a singular, unconnected event. Meaning is derived not from the concrete but from narrative, and narrative is in turn constituted by pattern and repetition. Readings from <\/span>The Handbook for Conjurers <\/span><\/i>gave me the technical challenges that I needed in order to put my theoretical musings on the grotesque and the hallucinatory into action. Thus, my primary technical concern was the creation of a specific, hallucinatory narrative via footage that utilized visual pattern and repeated often enough to hint at hidden meanings.<\/span><\/p>\n

I played with shapes and tried to create tension using different speeds of footage juxtaposed on top of one another. I created narrative through the visual motif of roundness, first articulated in a pendulum motion like the ticking of a clock and second in a rounded spotlight, which drew attention to a shadowy hand in motion within the circle. <\/span><\/p>\n