Young Australian Psychedelic Art

[shivaindisguise]

Hey guys and gals,

Am stoked to present my website which tries to show something different within the psychedelic art scene.

I try to steer away from repetitive patterns and move straight into novelty. I am totally still learning and starting out, but I am busting my balls in trying to develop new visual tastes that reflect specific moments of visual psychedelia.

I am interested in the theory that accompanies pieces, so its not just splashy colour. Each piece is a different code that is unique to itself. It is self-reflexive and talking to itself in the work. This starts a visual loop cycle. There is no ideology - no thing is made to look like any thing. This allows you to start the hallucination process within a contained space. You start to link bridges with other bridges, finding startling results and intricate story lines. It is not abstract art as I am showing specifically this trait. It is hallucinatory realism. It is without an over-riding storyline on top. Patterns are only ever referenced never shown - allowing you to absorb into the novelty of it.

Please have a browse around, as I feel this is the community who would be open to new and subtle details of visual language which can only be evoked by those who have seen the world unbound.

www.liamkey.com

There are 3 other sites that are in the works.

One is totally dedicated to being a research portal for artists in the context of Acacia use. www.acaciaarts.com (still being made)

And another for anyone who would like to be involved www.theaustraliens.com (still being made).

This site will focus on the website design being the art piece.

Currently up is www.valleyofnovelty.com which is a randomly loading "gallery". Any psy artists can submit their works to be loaded into the novelty machine.

I realise that all my shit is totally at a half way stage, but I am preparing to do a PhD in the field next year. I have a degree and Masters, and have been blocked by an ethics comittee at a University in QLD. I would really like to steer this artistic movement in a very progressive direction. One being to refine the work made to becoming research standard, thus allowing visions captured by artists to adhere to a strict protocol to enhance decipherment. There are many pitfalls when trying to transcribe a vision, and this is why it is just dumped with other design art pieces. More is being described in

Edited February 20, 2012 by shivaindisguise

[Psylo]

Brilliant ! I find some of your work very striking, and will look more when I am on my big screen PC.

Just a friendly headsup before you get too attached to the name, australiens is already the name of the Oz Psytrance scene online..... unless youre affiliated, you may wish to reconsider.

www.theaustraliens.com (still being made).

This site will focus on the website design being the art piece.

 

[Amazonian]

G'day shivaindisguise. Nice'n' bright art work.!!! The second one looks like a restaurant overlooking the beach, and the last one reminds me of chocolate . .

[shivaindisguise]

Thanks for the encouragement Psylo and Amazonian.

On theAustraliens note - was a genuine, major, stuff up by myself. I thought I had just come up with a fantastic name, bought the domain and space, and then googled and realised it was a gigantic online psytrance scene (I must have heard about it). So I think I will just back off from that one completely, and transfer the site I was building to a new name.

[Psylo]

If it's any consolation, I think the Psy site might have nicked it (by way of parphrasing) from the late '90's Australian metal band Alchemist

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/66/AustralAlien.jpg

Looking forward to seeing more of your art, please keep us posted, and hope you stick around. Do you have an interest in shamanic plants, either growing or researching ? (keeping in mind the site's self incrimination rules lol)

[shivaindisguise]

I have a degree and a masters (in Creative Industry areas), and I am trying to get a scholarship for a PhD combining the entheogen and visual art categories for scientific analysis. Last year I was "blocked" by an ethics committee at a University for the title "Visual traits of N,N-Dimetheyltryptamine" even though it was only going to analyse works online created by artists who had admitted to using it (not myself), trying to look at it objectively and inside a broader range of the community. The main reason for not letting it go ahead was for future incrimination when in discussion of any artist, (along with a scary, illegal title).

I have spent the past four or five months, heavily researching as much as I can on a "new topic" which I have probably once again pinched inspiration from elsewhere. However, I really want to contribute to a field that needs a definitive answer. So after hearing over and over through whispers, I changed the topic to (drumroll...) "Aboriginal artwork in the context of Acacia use" . I must be honest though Psylo - I felt absolutely devastated last night re-reading over new comments in another topic that is about this particular subject. It was filled with a lot of hostility, and I felt incredibly guilty and naive.

Now I've only recently come upon that thread, but I have not followed the entire thing. I have gotten the basic picture of the argument, and I am not sure which side anyones on! I don't want to do anyone any harm, or damage, or incrimination. But I think that it is a definite worthy investigation, that should be led openly, calmly and transparently. This is of course my own projection and not the viewpoint of traditional elders. This would be the goal of forcing a restricted study on this topic alone - allowing all sides to emerge in a long lengthy investigation.

My goal would be to trek to traditional towns further North, and make a documentary on the subject. I would be hoping for full co-operation with the University I would be at - allowing all styles of enquiry into the subject matter - including large Aboriginal and Torre Strait Island sections of support and research - which would then filter to further connections.

The goal (for me) would be the path of least resistance. It would seek co-operation with elders to build upon the already huge amount of research that would be then added to larger banks of psychedelic research like MAPS. This would hopefully show the extent of how sacred the knowledge is viewed and the lengths taken for it not to be lost - (to show such a large chain of already interconnected cultures and sub-cultures). Of course it could be simply to dispel the myth - but this is why trekking out for one-on-ones over the length of 4 years would help, particularly if it was showing a specific tribe still using methods that have been passed down.

This is by no mean the only topic I'm interested in, as I feel this is proving a historical point, that would align with a current point, and that there is a whole can of worms for the future point all this could lead to. That is by far the most interesting one - what we can actually do from understanding the mechanics of the hallucinations - animators are really the only ones who can represent what is going on in this novel field - no camera can capture the subjective state. Only artists can represent them. The more skills an artist/animator has, the better articulate in the visual language they become. An artist is the only information channeller or technology we have in representing what is seen "behind closed eyelids". Rather than just coming back with thousands of trippy images, the point would be to go ten steps further by understanding the mechanics of the visions, and creating a hyperspatial map - a map that would contain the various visual categories or places/stages one can access, and how they move and function.

Would love to hear your thoughts on this Psylo or anyone else - though I have a feeling that no matter how I could try to approach this type of subject - I would always leave myself open to being incorrect, since I'm trying to show something that is not a personal experience.

[curaezipirid]

I think I have a contribution to make here, into discourse, about what comprises a uniquely Australian set of psychedelic imagery.

Now, my next statement, I am not going to attempt to provide evidence to validate, because it is only knowable in experiential ways; but I will say my own experiences prove it valid, but this is just me, and nobody with any scientific or even pseudo psycentific kind of "qualification" qualities, to be measured up in the established status quo via.

Most longer lasting imagery, that is perceivable in another dimension, or on drugs, or in the inner spaces of the mind, can be defined within the sciences of metaphysics as existing in the atmosphere of the Earth, as patterns in which gaseous molecules kind of hang out together in patterns; AND, is needfully being recreated and reinstated frequently, unless it is very much more expensive on the mind to have to witness, as it was very much more expensive to shape into place at the outset, and might be pre-causal to more larger phenomenon at Earth in solid density matter, (aka mana). That process of recreation or reinstating, of specific fields of knowledge, that come with specific types of visual imagery, is normally managed by local indigenous folk, in every land. For example, nobody had Christian imagery in their dreams so readily, before indigenous peoples converted en masse, in each of the world's lands. All sustainable cultures have secret sacred core knowledge, of how to continually reinstate such knowledge, and accompanying imagery, etc, etc, etc,

OK, so if you can wrap your minds around that paragraph, as even potentially believable, and even temporarily test worthy as believable, now try this idea:

within indigenous Australian culture,

images of representations of truth and meaning,

are, in one of the following three forms:

a) were so over exposed and so badly robbed off of everybody, as that we all (indigenous mob I refer to here) suspect one another of having set up a set up for catching out who the dreamtime robbers were;

were so secretly hidden as that hardly anybody with white skin could stand a chance of getting to the substance of the matter, and nobody at all without indigenous ancestry would survive having a look into;

c) were already all fully transformed and transfigured into representations which came to be exactly condensed into solid matter/mana, as the indigenous flora and fauna unique to this land.

This is a story called, "why living in the shade of gum trees keeps you a bit higher than the rest of the planet all the time"

Also known as, "why certain kinds of investigators, wanted to disqualify indigenous Australian culture as having any humanity, so called Australia Terra Nullius, and why also many folk today, tended to honour other indigenous cultures of the planet, more highly than indigenous Australian, BECAUSE WE DON'T SHOW UP WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE IN THE ETHER WITHOUT HAVING PROVEN A POINT IMMUTABLY FIRST"

Also known as "why Aussies have less formally figurative psychedelic art"

Edited February 22, 2012 by curaezipirid

[curaezipirid]

I dunno about everybody else, but I reckon there are many Australian landscape artists, who have a very bleak, and yet quite psychedelic kind of style.

And it is a style that corresponds neatly with there being far less monsters in the sky, (which I know all about having been to China, where, late one night, a soldier singled me out of a group of about 8-9 westerners, and offered me a joint and I was too scared to say no, it being weird enough to begin with for anybody to be out at all late at night in Beijing), . . . and loads of creepy crawlies on the ground INSTEAD!

(in China the ether was like episode after episode after episode of MONKEY . . .

Edited February 22, 2012 by curaezipirid

[Psylo]

The issue in that thread took a negative turn when people started gushing from their spout about their ill-informed conjecture.

In recent turns of discussion, there was an offering of actual anectotal 'evidence'. To disregard the poster (in this instance) on the discussion variant is akin to calling him a liar. That was rough, I feel.

Have you uncovered many other threads within this forum ? If I may be so bold as so recommend one, of which you may/may not find alignment to your evolving idealogy:

Transcendent Compounds

Edited February 22, 2012 by Psylo Dread

[curaezipirid]

so I deleted that

Edited February 23, 2012 by curaezipirid

[shivaindisguise]

Thanks Psylo, this does help - Greg is a "man on a mission", which I feel is a very similar path to myself, but it is different in that it is aiming at understanding many hallucinogens, and legalising them - a mighty task. I am trying to add one single piece to the puzzle at a time.

My focus is on visual qualities expressed through cultural artefacts - and how far back this goes in Australia's history.

By proving a historical link between the Aborigines and Acacia, this would add enormous cultural significance for future legal problems the plant might encounter. However it has to then be incorporated with the future potentials of Acacia visuals.

cureaziprid made some fantastic points. I too feel like the traditional landscape painters of Australia have a bleak and yet quite psychedelic type of style. Prior to having personal experiences, I always viewed this type of work as "dull", "realistic", and showing me nothing more than what a camera does. But there were subtle organised patterns of chaos that merge and blend together. They were watching the Matrix, and the God codes of information were embedded in the patterns they were drawing. They were not computer patterns though, perfectly symmetrical. This is a key, because the true Acacia visuals are not perfectly symmetrical. They show fractals, that are not the same pattern repeated - it is as if they are fractals of novelty.

I feel that this is one of the major qualities to works like Alex Grey, compared to many other digital psychedelic artists who use digital patterns or fractals. Alex Grey is painting each facet of a pattern, and so he will never get it perfect - it is filled with imperfections. He is simply referencing a higher ordered pattern, through intricately different bits. The parts of novelty are not important by themselves, but together they create, the "experience". This is why it would be impossible to represent visually the experience of Acacia, but you can communicate a perfect isomorphism, or the same intangible structure, without the specifics.

Curazipirid also made the point that the sources of shapes in hallucinations could originate from somewhere else. This is one of the ultimate questions that needs to be answered, and can only through visual reference to what was seen, not described. Whether they originate in the ether as suggested, or as I have read by studies "that hallucinations are the physical architecture of the visual cortex". Which is a micro view. Who travels where?

For me I feel that it literally unveils new information, around any event or scene - animism; where all things are shown to have already been filled with a living energy.

Curazipirid can you please re-explain your really interesting points about : "suspect one another of having set up a set up for catching out who the dreamtime robbers were" - what is a dreamtime robber? Someone who represents visual qualities of the space?

"why living in the shade of gum trees keeps you a bit higher than the rest of the planet all the time" - concerning gum tree psychoactive qualities in the stems ? (have heard)

"why aussies have less formally figurative psychedelic art"

What is determining the style of vision they were representing? Both the traditional landscape artists, and the Aboriginal.

I have also just recently read Martin W. Ball's "Essays on 5-MEO-DMT" and Rocs "Tryptamine Palace", and both books are filled to the brim with talk about how DMT is a lesser powerful entheogen, and that the real answer is that it is all perfect non-duality. That the DMT hallucinations are real, but their from your mind, not non-local. That McKennas "machine elves" were nothing more than an "overtly egotistical man, who never got past the fact that he was looking into a mirror". I have a feeling that they have shut off investigations far too quick into the depths of these mysteries. What is required is the perfect representations of the visual qualities of well known social conquests such as the machine elves.

Anyone else with interesting points on the ultimately desired visual qualities of Australian psychedelic art?

[curaezipirid]

Curazipirid can you please re-explain your really interesting points about : "suspect one another of having set up a set up for catching out who the dreamtime robbers were" - what is a dreamtime robber? Someone who represents visual qualities of the space?

"why living in the shade of gum trees keeps you a bit higher than the rest of the planet all the time" - concerning gum tree psychoactive qualities in the stems ? (have heard)

"why aussies have less formally figurative psychedelic art"

What is determining the style of vision they were representing? Both the traditional landscape artists, and the Aboriginal.

 

On the first point, (and sorry about my bent sense of humour everybody, I get that, sort of too funny one time, like I couldn't have noticed the joke on me, then the next time like to bent for anybody else to get what I was finding funny) . . . .

Umm, back into the original context, minus accidental smilie face

within indigenous Australian culture,

images of representations of truth and meaning,

are, in one of the following three forms:

A: were so over exposed and so badly robbed off of everybody, as that we all (indigenous mob I refer to here) suspect one another of having set up a set up for catching out who the dreamtime robbers were;

B: were so secretly hidden as that hardly anybody with white skin could stand a chance of getting to the substance of the matter, and nobody at all without indigenous ancestry would survive having a look into;

C: were already all fully transformed and transfigured into representations which came to be exactly condensed into solid matter/mana, as the indigenous flora and fauna unique to this land.

Point A, is in that in the Aboriginal way, nobody lets nobody rip anybody else off, without expecting that who got worst ripped off, was potentially in on the whole deal.

Whether or not any of us were in on such deals, we tend to hide, and then tend to become exposed for having hidden our part in, as soon as we have realised that hiding that part of the game, is somewhat cancerous. But it is basically a kind of angle on warfare which is unique to indigenous Australia. Basically dreamtime robbers are not who represent the visual qualities of space, but were who stole the representations other people made, and attempted to assert false meanings around.

Next point I believe you are asking me, is in respect of what the relationship was/is within indigenous culture, in respect of the relationships between the psycho-active content of native plants, and Art in indigenous culture.

Well, the pituri chewers in Alice are allowed to sell their Art, even when in every other respect, they fall to the bottom of the heap in Aboriginal social structures.

So when I say "figurative" I am saying it contains representations of human figures, so when I say less formally figurative, I mean that indigenous Art is not obviously figurative outside of indigenous cultural contexts, but I also intend to imply, a similarity within much of the work of well known Australian landscape painters. Where are the human figures? You know how in Chinese Art, the human figures are often tiny and distant, and the way to get their is concealed. Like that, but more like, you'd want to be very polite to everybody to get in on which figures are representative of how human beings fit into the landscape.

As to what is determining? . . . . you may need to be more precise with your question, in case I have not comprehended it accurately enough.

But it seems like you are asking, on one level, is the landscape causal to the Art or the Art causal to the landscape.

The answer is that people cause the Art, and the Art causes patterns of human consideration.

People also caused the landscape, and the landscape causes patterns of human consideration.

This is the plain fact of indigenous society, that you can't make the relationships between the landscape/trees, and the Art, without knowing you have to factor in human people, as who made the Art, and witnessed the Art, and who witness the landscape, and make impressions in the landscape. It is all about relationship for indigenous men as well as women. Relationship is the defining function, like the function that defines the structure. So nobody in any indigenous context relates Art with landscape, without relating Art to humans and humans to Art.

So your sentence "Both the traditional landscape artists, and the Aboriginal" (I am assuming you mean traditionally European landscape artists, but at first I wondered since "traditional" in my head means traditional Aboriginal, so now your question makes more sense.) Well I am agreeing, that both the traditional euro-centric artists and Aboriginal artists, have the dominant influence of the Aussie landscapes, that might or might not, be also very influenced by the smell of the gum trees.

I was not originally intending to imply anything about pituri, BUT, having spent two years overseas, then seeing gum trees for the first time again when in Greece, I am certain that I was severely missing the effect of the scent of the oil.

Eucalyptus oils have a "suppressive" effect on the mind, meaning that they delete aspects of the consciousness, until a later date, when the body is more enabled to process. Like causing dissociative psychosis slightly all the time. But varying from location to location with species, varies what matter of mind is able to be present in body.

What is determining? I dunno, could be the Eucalyptus I guess, but then what determines what grew where?

but as for good psychedelic ART (about which I won't bother explaining again, that what goes up, must come down, therefore bring it down as biodiversity please):

(whoops the first image I only had in Facebook, and not in any other website, so I posted it to the EGA Facebook page, and so here is another):

Edited February 24, 2012 by curaezipirid

[curaezipirid]

p.s. good on your new website shivaindisguise,

I guess I hope my posts give your work inspiration

Edited February 24, 2012 by curaezipirid

[curaezipirid]

 

more Christmas beetle

[∂an]

impressive websites and artworks you have there shivaindisguise, I like your idea about the website itself being the art piece. I especially enjoyed "Botanical Dimensions of Acacia Maidenii". Have you seen this video from Xenodimensional? I really love the rendering of the acacia with phyllodes in bloom.

 

 

By proving a historical link between the Aborigines and Acacia, this would add enormous cultural significance for future legal problems the plant might encounter. However it has to then be incorporated with the future potentials of Acacia visuals.

 

It is well documented that aboriginals Australians had and still have a close relationship with many acacia species, making use of the seeds to cook a type of damper, the resin as a food for long journeys and the ash for pituri production. Whether or not they made explicit use of the tryptamines in them is another question. That acacia species are used in smoking ceremonies is highly suggestive as this is the most likely form of administration by a technologically primitive culture (certainly no disrespect meant here, i admire the aboriginals for their harmonious existence with nature and ingenious use of tools).

However, I'm not sure trying to publicly prove aboriginals got high off acacia is really the best idea. For the plant itself, its cultural utility apart from its use as an intoxicant should be enough to ensure its protection. Maybe its not the place of western society to try and use indigenous culture to publicly justify use of an illegal substance. What your doing with producing and researching art inspired by these plants is probably the most constructive thing that can be done to bring tryptamine consciousness into modern society, as it does it in a subliminal and not overt way.

I have also just recently read Martin W. Ball's "Essays on 5-MEO-DMT" and Rocs "Tryptamine Palace", and both books are filled to the brim with talk about how DMT is a lesser powerful entheogen, and that the real answer is that it is all perfect non-duality. That the DMT hallucinations are real, but their from your mind, not non-local. That McKennas "machine elves" were nothing more than an "overtly egotistical man, who never got past the fact that he was looking into a mirror". I have a feeling that they have shut off investigations far too quick into the depths of these mysteries. What is required is the perfect representations of the visual qualities of well known social conquests such as the machine elves.

 

I have only started to read Ball's essays, and enjoyed Oroc's book. But I am suspicious when someone starts yelling about how some particular substance is the supreme entheogen and knock others, especially when its a synthetically produced compound bought mail order. Maybe McKenna opened himself up to those kind of attack by being so dismissive of 5-MeO, but I think he has a point about it being a little bit dangerous (people often fall unconscious, turn blue etc). Jonathon Ott is also a fan of 5-MeO, but he has said that he doesn't get visual hallucinations from any psychedelic, so maybe thats why he prefers the sensation of 5-MeO. I think its just that people are individuals and certain compounds and plants resonate more strongly with them than others.

Anyone else with interesting points on the ultimately desired visual qualities of Australian psychedelic art?

 

I guess that it reflects the unique australian lanscape, as aboriginal art does. Bright earthy colours, shimmering patterns reminiscent of a scorching desert, sparseness punctuated by outbusts of fractal beauty. look forward to seeing your future work!

Edited February 25, 2012 by kalika

[shivaindisguise]

Thanks curaezipirid and kalika . Really appreciate your ideas and encouragement.

These posts are very important in determining my direction.

Try to keep it brief and clear:

1. My definite mistake on "traditional artists"! I had meant Eurocentric Australian traditional artists 1800-1900.

2. I too agree that there is murky distinctions between what causes the patterns whether it was humans or landscape - it feels like chicken and the egg. The relationship between the artist and the viewer, nature and the art piece - is an intensely strong point. Clearly showing that there is no distinction between these sort of Western reductionist ideas.

3. The strongest psychedelic ART is most definitely biodiversity. Seems as if again each pattern or creation is just a novel reflection of the same code.

4. Kalika - This is exactly the point of Australian psychedelic art I had felt but couldn't articulate.

"shimmering patterns reminiscent of a scorching desert, sparseness punctuated by outbursts of fractal beauty".

The landscapes seem to start sliding into one another - patterns clash with one another, rather than it just being leaves on trees.

Some artists it feels as if they are seeing into the landscape at that time, and trying to reveal the underlying codes at play rather than strict realism of the surrounding world.

5. "For the plant itself, its cultural utility apart from its use as an intoxicant should be enough to ensure its protection".

"publicly prove aboriginals got high off acacia is really the best idea"

"western society to try and use indigenous culture to publicly justify use of an illegal substance"

- These are points I definitely feel need to be at the top of the agenda due to cultural sensitivity. I am trying explicitly to see whether or not the visual style of their cultural artefacts are linked to historical or current use. This would add extra research to both Australian Indigenous history as well as to the history of Acacia use. Thats the main goal - the future potential of using this research to legitimise the substance would be up to someone else to tackle that battle.

Like you too, I feel like the best avenue forward is to focus on the cultural artefacts from the Acacia - even if I feel like it doesn't matter whether they are from Western or Indigenous sources.

6. Now this is a coincidence (or bad theory) - Xenodimensional is secretly one of the most fantastic blokes you could meet. I specifically met with him for coffee to discuss that film you posted being on my site acaciaarts.com approximately 2 months ago.

That film is exactly what is required. Except the goal for artists must be to continue refining the video effect techniques to explicitly represent the visual style of complexity, depth etc. He also agreed to do an interview discussing the problems representing the visuals.

On a side note - I have spoken with Mitch Schultz (director of DMT: Spirit Molecule) about the process of him working with his animators and on a side not he mentioned that he had to describe the visuals to the animators, so they could represent them. They were not working from experience. To me this rang alarm bells - there needs to be a bank of artists, animators who are experienced in the field to retrieve back visuals from - a predominantly visual substance. It seems ludicrous to write a single paper on what is purely a visual, motion experience. No camera can represent the subjective experience, and so artists are given the same power of explorers. For they are the only ones who can return and speak in the language of the visions.

The best probability for this to unfold would be for artists/animators to be the prime individuals who are used for future legitimate DMT human psychedelic trials. Specific trials with specific visual test apparatus.

~~ Just and update ~~

Received an email from MAPS today (after sending a letter enquiring as to any further research) encouraging the study, seeing its immediate potential benefits for studies in psychopharmacology. This really got me excited once again, hearing it from a very formal place - (even if it is just a single response).

I am definitely spending the next 6 months preparing how to tread this murky water so I can get a scholarship and formalise the research. I am just totally struggling without it being a formal process - feels far too loose.