Tiny Jungle: Psychedelic Techniques in Audio-Visual Composition

Tiny Jungle (duration 7:10) [1] is a psychedelic audio- visual montage, with a soundtrack based upon electroacoustic music and late 1990s drum and bass. This work forms part of my research regarding ‘Altered states of consciousness (ASCs) as an adaptive principle for composing electroacoustic music’. According to Heinrich Klüver [2] and Timothy Leary [3], ASCs such as those induced by mescaline may commonly result in the perception of visual patterns of hallucination, cryptic symbols, perception of cellular or atomic forms, and strange journeys or narratives. Tiny Jungle uses these ASC features as a basis for the composition of sound and video. Visual material for this piece was created through a montage of animated hand-drawn artwork, 3D graphics and material created using a specially designed Max/MSP/Jitter tool that produces stroboscopic visual material in real-time. The combination of music and moving images is intended to construct a narrative that conveys psychedelic experiences. In this paper I will discuss the development of Tiny Jungle from concept to realisation, with emphasis on the development of visual material and a brief overview of the soundtrack. It is hoped to thereby stimulate thought for audio-visual practitioners on compositional techniques based upon ASCs and audio-visual montage techniques involving hand-produced artwork and real-time methods.