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Digital Wonderland Playlist
Oct. 2nd, 2019 03:45 pmI have a bit of a cyberpunk / cyborg “fetish”, which includes things like:
• what I call “monorail music” (somewhere between house and chillwave)
• cyberpunk environments like Kowloon Walled City and Anata No Warehouse
• alternately: pristine, futuristic, utopian environments
• electronic noise, audio glitch
• retro computer graphics, vector graphics (such as Atari’s Quadrascan), Quantel Paintbox
• the computer entities from films like Dark Star, THX-1138, and Logan’s Run that, even when warning of impending doom, sounded calm, detached, almost seductive
• disorientation, sensory overload, detachment; a hazy dreamlike feeling
• Yuki Nagato from Haruhi Suzumiya and Canti from Fooly Cooly
• many pleasant memories of sitting in Japanese internet cafés, which were cool, dark, and quiet—they were oases where I could escape, relax, listen to monorail music, and have free coffee. I could imagine I was in a spaceship, sitting in the dark, with only the glow from the monitors providing illumination.
I decided to make a 90-minute video I could play on my phone, inserted into a virtual reality headset. The video was made up of short clips which included footage from Triterasu commercials, Takako Minekawa’s “Plash” music video, Tokyo’s Yamanote Line display, Digidrive (a video game from the bit Generations series), and Jimmy Edgar’s “New Touch” music video. Using a stereoscopic viewer without a stereoscopic image produces an odd effect: each eye sees half of the image, but the images overlap and create a single image. I discovered this while testing the video, but decided the disorientation would be just fine for my purposes.
And then I added music; the playlist was:
“Dive” appears twice simply because I like it so much I would’ve been happy to listen to nothing else!
After a few viewings, I tried it with a little THC in the form of a tincture (0.75ml). I felt as if I were in some kind of digital utopia or wonderland, kept “happy and placid” by subsisting only on data, imagery, and advertising carefully chosen by the (supposedly) benevolent powers-that-be! Here is an edited version for demonstration purposes:
Note: please excuse the image quality: the video was exported at a low resolution since it was meant to be viewed on a phone.
One thing I noticed when I used THC was how different the music sounded. I felt like I was hearing all kinds of detail, some nearly imperceptible, that I had not noticed before (and which led me to item 5, the “audio bonbons” described here). Even the synthesized instrumentation and samples stood out: with headphones, I could hear how carefully and artfully sculpted they were. It gave me a new appreciation for creators of electronic music.
• what I call “monorail music” (somewhere between house and chillwave)
• cyberpunk environments like Kowloon Walled City and Anata No Warehouse
• alternately: pristine, futuristic, utopian environments
• electronic noise, audio glitch
• retro computer graphics, vector graphics (such as Atari’s Quadrascan), Quantel Paintbox
• the computer entities from films like Dark Star, THX-1138, and Logan’s Run that, even when warning of impending doom, sounded calm, detached, almost seductive
• disorientation, sensory overload, detachment; a hazy dreamlike feeling
• Yuki Nagato from Haruhi Suzumiya and Canti from Fooly Cooly
• many pleasant memories of sitting in Japanese internet cafés, which were cool, dark, and quiet—they were oases where I could escape, relax, listen to monorail music, and have free coffee. I could imagine I was in a spaceship, sitting in the dark, with only the glow from the monitors providing illumination.
I decided to make a 90-minute video I could play on my phone, inserted into a virtual reality headset. The video was made up of short clips which included footage from Triterasu commercials, Takako Minekawa’s “Plash” music video, Tokyo’s Yamanote Line display, Digidrive (a video game from the bit Generations series), and Jimmy Edgar’s “New Touch” music video. Using a stereoscopic viewer without a stereoscopic image produces an odd effect: each eye sees half of the image, but the images overlap and create a single image. I discovered this while testing the video, but decided the disorientation would be just fine for my purposes.
And then I added music; the playlist was:
| Song, Year | Artist | Link | |
| 1. | “Deep 1.3”, 2015 | Q-Calm | Link |
| 2. | “Amplify”, 2019 | A.L.I.S.O.N. | Link |
| 3. | “Bubble Gum”, 2008 | Mr. Pips | Link |
| 4. | “El Tren”, 2007 | Tatsu | Link |
| 5. | “Subliminal”, 2010 | Yoshinori Sunahara | Link |
| 6. | “Dive”, 2018 | Yu-utsu and A.L.I.S.O.N. | Link |
| 7. | “Caligula”, 2018 | Windows96 | Link |
| 8. | “These Waves of You”, 2016 | Gridline | Link |
| 9. | “Berauschen”, 2007 | Fineline | Link |
| 10. | “Tenth Floor”, 2015 | Ishii Fuwa | Link |
| 11. | “Gossiping”, 2013 | Geolm | Link |
| 12. | “MEGA”, 2017 | Emil Rottmayer | Link |
| 13. | “Dive Control”, 2008? | Morgenklang | Link |
| 14. | “Clear”, 2017 | Yu-utsu | Link |
| 15. | “WISDOM”, 2017 | Ian O’Brien | Link |
| 16. | “Home A3”, 2004 | Uese | n/a |
| 17. | “Dive”, 2018 | Yu-utsu and A.L.I.S.O.N. | Link |
“Dive” appears twice simply because I like it so much I would’ve been happy to listen to nothing else!
After a few viewings, I tried it with a little THC in the form of a tincture (0.75ml). I felt as if I were in some kind of digital utopia or wonderland, kept “happy and placid” by subsisting only on data, imagery, and advertising carefully chosen by the (supposedly) benevolent powers-that-be! Here is an edited version for demonstration purposes:
Note: please excuse the image quality: the video was exported at a low resolution since it was meant to be viewed on a phone.
One thing I noticed when I used THC was how different the music sounded. I felt like I was hearing all kinds of detail, some nearly imperceptible, that I had not noticed before (and which led me to item 5, the “audio bonbons” described here). Even the synthesized instrumentation and samples stood out: with headphones, I could hear how carefully and artfully sculpted they were. It gave me a new appreciation for creators of electronic music.
