Psychedelia | 5th Dimension, Inner World
Studio Vito Acconci | Spring 2015 | Pratt Institute | New York | U.S.A.
Project By: Milad Showkatbakhsh
Psychedelia is a series of digital art projects using computational tools to create highly sophisticated and complex computer-generated geometries and environments to challenge the human mind and perception. It aims to trigger different sets of stimuli in the human brain. The uniqueness of the projections of the forms in every single mind leads to the formation of an exclusive experience.
My last studio project at Pratt Institute was a conceptual and experimental project. “Psychedelia” has two main objectives. First is to explore the world of fractals in an extreme way to make an experimental imagery of their complexity and to visualize the complex mathematical feedback loop. Through picturing the chaos, I was looking for the spatial qualities that might occur within the dynamic process of generating 3D geometries.
Psychedelia was generated by the combination of more than 10 fractal equations. Every second of the project is a unique state of this dynamic system. I started with studying the fractals in depth to understand their complexity. I generated 10 unique states and let the system to generate the rest of the animation through blending these static images to each other. Through 8 minutes of animation, this dynamic system generated fascinating 3-dimensional spaces with spatial qualities.
The second goal was to study people’s perception after observing and experiencing constant spatial deformation of the system without any alteration in consciousness. I received interesting feedbacks that finally lead me toward the next stage of this project.
This is an ongoing project for me. I want to make this project first, more immersive and then interactive. Until now Psychedelia can be experienced in VR, 3D
(with stereoscopic glasses ) and normal mode. You can watch them here.
The final stage of this project is to open a closed feedback loop to external feedbacks. To make it interactive in a way that system will accept the audience’s feedback and regulate itself to what they are thinking. This stage needs a strategy and deeper thoughts. But the concept is to decompose the system to its building blocks and use those building blocks to make and generate another geometry based on the feedbacks from the audience. The goal is to break a close system to branch out to another close or open systems. In this case audience’s feedbacks play an important role in the outcome of the project. This stage of the project needs more time and knowledge. At this moment I am at the stage of strategy planning.
One of the moments of Psychedelia, it is observed as a dense and futuristic city.
A moment of Psychedelia, it is observed as a complex microscopic universe.
A moment of Psychedelia, the observations are unified this reminds of a colony of living beings, a collective social biological life.
This is the 3D version of Psychedelia, a stereoscopic glasses are needed to fully experience it.
This is the VR version of Psychedelia, a google cardboard or a similar instrument is needed to fully experience it. You can watch it in the flat screen and turn your focal point as it is a 360-degree video as well.