My idea is to manipulate frame rate in a way that substantially contributes to
the meaning of video. It is essentially the development of a new cinematic
technique I am developing, not a specific video piece; as such this is a
long term project that will involve a large amount of research and filmmaking,
likely to result in a body of multiple films that will together illustrate the
dimensions of the technique in practice.
Specifically, I am interested in correlating frame rate with the range of human
brain waves observable from EEG recordings, as they are classified in the field
of neuroscience. It is my hypothesis that such a variation of frame rate will
not effect the audience only on a conscious level, but also has the potential to
directly influence the rate of a viewer's brain waves, via the process of photic
driving, a subset of a phenomenon called entrainment.
I hope this summary is a convenient introduction for anyone who might be interested in my idea but would otherwise get lost in all the text.
Monday, November 5, 2007
Project Dimensions
The following is an update on the progress and interaction between my ideas. I plan to update this post and reform in into a more cohesive entry soon. As it is however, it fleshes out the dimensions of my project fairly well.
A dream machine is “viewed” with closed eyes. The human eye's advanced
capacity for perceiving high resolution images is set aside while input is
reduced to a primitive binary pulsation of extreme luminance values.
The a priori “content” of the viewing experience exists only in the temporal
domain. The perception of this stimuli may be somewhat synesthetic in nature,
triggering an audio-like sensation in the perceptually fuzzy range of Hz that is
too fast to be rhythm and too slow to be perceived as pitch. With no spatial
differentiation (to use a digital analogy, no intra-frame information), photic
driving might be better described as a sub-visual stimulus.
I must continue with substantial research into the biological reality underlying
the phenomenon, but at this point it seems that visual entrainment functions by
either A) exploiting only certain specialized retinal cells (possibly related to
ganglion cell transmissions via the retinohypothalamic tract?) by bombarding
them with an unusual stimulus, or B) engaging at some kind of meta-level with
all the eye's receptors, using the optic nerve as a route for “hacking” the
brain.
It's easier to conceive of this as a design error rather than imagine that
nature intended us to respond to photic driving and other forms of entrainment,
but I'm not yet willing to rule out that our hardwired potential for deep level
synchronization and conscious submission may in fact prove to be evolutionary
advantages (to briefly touch on this without getting lost on a tangent, just
consider the utility of rhythm and trance in religious experience and work
songs).
Photosensitive epilepsy, albeit a condition afflicting only about 5% of chronic
epileptics (though exaggerated in the media and public imagination), is
convincing evidence of how powerful, and potentially dangerous the stimulus of a
flickering light may be, even if only to a specific subset of the general
population. A historical perspective reveals that, particularly in biology, the
study of abnormal conditions is often the most potent frontier in the advance of
scientific knowledge, ultimately with broad implications and pervasive
relevance.
Is there any more controversial and underdeveloped field of scientific study
than neuroscience? The answer is no – no I can't, won't and don't want to make
any pretense of being a scientifically rigorous torch bearer. With that
disclaimer, I've recently become aware of Karl Pribram and David Bohm's
collaborative Holonomic brain theory as a fascinating new research area that
might benefit my project development.
I feel like a reasonable knowledge of non-invasive (EEG-based) neuroscience is
necessary for me as I develop my project to keep the results of my experiments
from being a random collection of cheap tricks that I can't reduplicate or
explain. I plan to craft video with intelligently varied frame rate semantically
integrated with the emotional and narrative content of the images. I expect the
frame rate manipulation to range from subtle and consciously imperceptible to
blatant strobing that would probably turn-off a close-minded audience. However,
the avantgarde art crowd has enough kids playing hot potato with
big ideas and I
wouldn't find any consolation if my work had to hide behind a massive artist's
statement or in Post-rationalization-land. If my technique gets
implemented and felt successfully, I wouldn't expect anyone watching such video
to be able to explain why it was affecting. To be successful though, it surely must be felt.
Back to the dream machine. Though it has no inherent atemporal visual detail, a
dream machine purportedly assists the user in generating self-emergent image
content by guiding the brain to a lucid dreaming state. It would be amazing if
photic driving could heighten the degree to which viewers imaginations were
provoked to dig into their associated memories to supplement the on-screen
content of a film. I don't think this would happen. At least not dramatically,
nor for the majority of people. I doubt most people would be able to fully
process complex images before their eyes while in a state of theta wave
dominance. Maybe young children and viewers who got bored and nodded off at the
start would have the best experience at these movies.
If 24p film were projected at 24 Hz, there would be noticeable flicker and
resultant eyestrain. Each frame is typically shown two or three consecutive
times, interrupted several times by a mechanical shutter, for a true refresh
rate of 48 or 72 Hz. Over 60, the flicker fusion threshold, is enough for most
people to consciously ignore the strobing.
Digital video cameras have no physical shutter per se. Shutter speed is the time a charge is allowed to build up on the CCD(s). I have no independent source to confirm this assertion yet, but it is my current understanding that when shutter speed is lower than frame rate on a digital camera, multiple frames are allowed to bleed together. This results in ghosting and image blur. The interaction of shutter speed/ exposure time and frame rate is something I need to explore further.
I have many questions. How far apart do the peaks and valleys of a wave
representing a stimulus have to be for this wave to be capable of entrainment?
Is there a maximum amplitude of such a wave beyond which it is no longer
effective? Is periodic change in luminous intensity (candelas) the only variable
for defining the Hz of the entraining stimulus or could relatively minor changes
in the detail of a frame (even with zero overall luminance change) be effective?
Are the valley and the trough most effective when they occur for equal
durations?
More to come.
A dream machine is “viewed” with closed eyes. The human eye's advanced
capacity for perceiving high resolution images is set aside while input is
reduced to a primitive binary pulsation of extreme luminance values.
The a priori “content” of the viewing experience exists only in the temporal
domain. The perception of this stimuli may be somewhat synesthetic in nature,
triggering an audio-like sensation in the perceptually fuzzy range of Hz that is
too fast to be rhythm and too slow to be perceived as pitch. With no spatial
differentiation (to use a digital analogy, no intra-frame information), photic
driving might be better described as a sub-visual stimulus.
I must continue with substantial research into the biological reality underlying
the phenomenon, but at this point it seems that visual entrainment functions by
either A) exploiting only certain specialized retinal cells (possibly related to
ganglion cell transmissions via the retinohypothalamic tract?) by bombarding
them with an unusual stimulus, or B) engaging at some kind of meta-level with
all the eye's receptors, using the optic nerve as a route for “hacking” the
brain.
It's easier to conceive of this as a design error rather than imagine that
nature intended us to respond to photic driving and other forms of entrainment,
but I'm not yet willing to rule out that our hardwired potential for deep level
synchronization and conscious submission may in fact prove to be evolutionary
advantages (to briefly touch on this without getting lost on a tangent, just
consider the utility of rhythm and trance in religious experience and work
songs).
Photosensitive epilepsy, albeit a condition afflicting only about 5% of chronic
epileptics (though exaggerated in the media and public imagination), is
convincing evidence of how powerful, and potentially dangerous the stimulus of a
flickering light may be, even if only to a specific subset of the general
population. A historical perspective reveals that, particularly in biology, the
study of abnormal conditions is often the most potent frontier in the advance of
scientific knowledge, ultimately with broad implications and pervasive
relevance.
Is there any more controversial and underdeveloped field of scientific study
than neuroscience? The answer is no – no I can't, won't and don't want to make
any pretense of being a scientifically rigorous torch bearer. With that
disclaimer, I've recently become aware of Karl Pribram and David Bohm's
collaborative Holonomic brain theory as a fascinating new research area that
might benefit my project development.
I feel like a reasonable knowledge of non-invasive (EEG-based) neuroscience is
necessary for me as I develop my project to keep the results of my experiments
from being a random collection of cheap tricks that I can't reduplicate or
explain. I plan to craft video with intelligently varied frame rate semantically
integrated with the emotional and narrative content of the images. I expect the
frame rate manipulation to range from subtle and consciously imperceptible to
blatant strobing that would probably turn-off a close-minded audience. However,
the avantgarde art crowd has enough kids playing hot potato with
big ideas and I
wouldn't find any consolation if my work had to hide behind a massive artist's
statement or in Post-rationalization-land. If my technique gets
implemented and felt successfully, I wouldn't expect anyone watching such video
to be able to explain why it was affecting. To be successful though, it surely must be felt.
Back to the dream machine. Though it has no inherent atemporal visual detail, a
dream machine purportedly assists the user in generating self-emergent image
content by guiding the brain to a lucid dreaming state. It would be amazing if
photic driving could heighten the degree to which viewers imaginations were
provoked to dig into their associated memories to supplement the on-screen
content of a film. I don't think this would happen. At least not dramatically,
nor for the majority of people. I doubt most people would be able to fully
process complex images before their eyes while in a state of theta wave
dominance. Maybe young children and viewers who got bored and nodded off at the
start would have the best experience at these movies.
If 24p film were projected at 24 Hz, there would be noticeable flicker and
resultant eyestrain. Each frame is typically shown two or three consecutive
times, interrupted several times by a mechanical shutter, for a true refresh
rate of 48 or 72 Hz. Over 60, the flicker fusion threshold, is enough for most
people to consciously ignore the strobing.
Digital video cameras have no physical shutter per se. Shutter speed is the time a charge is allowed to build up on the CCD(s). I have no independent source to confirm this assertion yet, but it is my current understanding that when shutter speed is lower than frame rate on a digital camera, multiple frames are allowed to bleed together. This results in ghosting and image blur. The interaction of shutter speed/ exposure time and frame rate is something I need to explore further.
I have many questions. How far apart do the peaks and valleys of a wave
representing a stimulus have to be for this wave to be capable of entrainment?
Is there a maximum amplitude of such a wave beyond which it is no longer
effective? Is periodic change in luminous intensity (candelas) the only variable
for defining the Hz of the entraining stimulus or could relatively minor changes
in the detail of a frame (even with zero overall luminance change) be effective?
Are the valley and the trough most effective when they occur for equal
durations?
More to come.
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