(main video is one at the end of article)
The 'Subliminal Dialogues' is an interactive sound installation. It isolates a personal experience for the participant in exploring the suprahuman archetypal world in a unique way.
The essence of archetypes from the west has been taken from Carl Jung's work in the field. (Jung, Carl; Franz, M L Von 1968. Man and His Symbols, Dell Publications). These concepts were further investigated through archetypal symbols in Indian culture of the ancients, and their emotional counterpart, the nine 'Rasas'. Hence The nine Rasas stand for the following nine root or archetypal emotions : Shrinagara (Love), Hasya (Joy), Adbhuta (Wonder), Shanta (Peace), Raudra (anger), Veera (Courage), Karuna (Sadness), Bhaya (Fear), Vibhatsa (Disgust). They are a set of root emotions that exist in its many variations and affective aspects. Example, root emotion of Wonder might have many forms like surprise or bewilderment or mystery and so forth.
I tried to drive these abstract concepts to a particular digital narrative experience, through the convergent power of the New Media medium, as spontaneous form of evidence.
An introduction to the interactivity
The set-up for the installation basically consists of archetypal sounds from Indian Mainstream film, a MIDI controller device(M-Audio TriggerFinger) for audio/video triggering, a screen and decent speakers/headphones. The interactive behaviours were initially set in Pure Data code/Gem. The sound scores were extracted from background scores of 'important' films in the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s, as hundreds of individual components. These were identified for their emotional archetype or "Rasa".
A cummulative score from these were further filtered out and assigned to the archetypal framework, ie, to each appropriate Rasa along with the decade it represented. These were stored into a database, as sound components, to be called by the respective software programme. The interactive behaviours were then entirely programmed from ChucK, on a non-linear platform. Initially Pure Data/Gem were used for the audio/video interactive behaviours. However, due to reliability issues, running both in tandem was a problem as seen in an example below.
Limitations with GEM/Pure Data running with ChucK
The semiotic significances of certain "emotionally arousing" music and their affective components that gives rise to identical human responses is explored through evidence. As an excerpt shown below, this part was research oriented material that examines through critical theory and interdisciplinary instances, the range of influence of these abstract concepts.
An excerpt from the research based documentation, where one is discovering patterns between socio-political influences, archetypal influences, mainstream film culture and sound patterns by mapping certain relationships.
The archetypes we referred to in Rasas dealt with root emotions, which in turn are signifiers for personified archetypal ideas in the form of a hero, villain, joker, anima/animus and so forth. Since from psychoanalytical point of view, they are the psychic link in meaning creation between our conscious and primitive unconscious, it leaves open interesting possibilities.
The 'collective unconsciousness' as referred to by Jung, is a human universe where these archetypes reside as symbols. Psychosocially represented, films from two divergent cultures could carry instances of immense archetypal significance in their medium. So by bringing these instances within resonating distance of each other, could one experience a collective unconscious? Do pre-linguistic origins of myth and meaning lie hidden in various forms within the language of media? Is there a new paradigm of humanitarianism oriented experience at the threshold, where people can be made to feel more united and less disparate?
The video below shows some series of explorations where these archetypal symbols from two different cinematic contexts, as well as mediums(sound and visuals), are juxtaposed.
(Do excuse the bad video quality, as it is not screen captured and video is highly compressed)
An exploration of the interactive experience
One does discover, from perspective, that the traditional creative control of an individual between image and sound is dissolved.
So we see a Ten Commandment excerpt where Moses was parting the red sea to the tune of temple bells in the background, which was part of the 'Rasa' Shanta, meaning peace. Or the SuperMan persona that gets reinforced when you play 'Rasa' Veera or the hero archetype in the background.
Or the Star Wars montage that unintentionally and almost eerily matches discrete sound elements between image and sound as if by sheer chance.
What seems like completely random patterns being triggered starts making meaningful connotations, as the brain tries to cover the psychological distancing between image and sound. In the process new meanings and signification are continuously generated, some of which can be quite amusing as they seem to strangely complement each other. This complementary effect becomes a unit when archetypal patterns of the visual match the ones in the sound, creating mutually supporting reactions on an instinctive, affective level.
Artists like John Cage have necessitated unpredictability in 'musical' performances as a generator of new perceptions and revelations, both as an ethical argument and aesthetic experiment.
In this case, across two disparate mediums, the unpredictability and the role of chance makes the experience one of consistent anticipation and discovery.
However, it is the discovery and experience of abstract psychoanalytical concepts like the collective unconscious through such experiments, that gives it the intended objective. And perhaps more importantly, it is the ability of trans-media archetypes of similar signification to resonate so well with each other, that makes sound itself seem to be a supreme carrier of collective unconscious patterns shared between humans diversified by borders and cultures.
And not to forget, that archetypal themes are already familiar in design when the market needs to brand or align a product with a particular image (eg. the Harley - Davidson outlaw, or the skull/claws/thorns with danger).
As an inquiry into interactive cinematic experience, one realizes that traditional film linearity is broken radically into divergent and complex units, with fluid narrative and meaning components emerging within a limitless space.
I would love to develop this further instead of leaving it open-ended the way it is at the moment. And of course develop a more customized control surface, rather than use factory devices. I hope to find an appropriate context, even if just by chance...
Thank You for reading!
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