Auroratone, a psychedelic 1940s film that helped WWII vets overcome PTSD | Hacker News Reader

Auroratone, a psychedelic 1940s film that helped WWII vets overcome PTSD

openculture.com

206 pointsZunarJ536 comments

Looks very similar to the Optikinetics Crystal Pulse product that is sadly no longer commercially available. Pretty niche lighting effect I encountered in the mid 90s. It was outdated even then. https://youtu.be/XuxZ7_lAhK8?si=TT-6WXfT5c4cvJGN

Wow, yeah, that is strikingly similar! The video in the submission seems a little more dynamic, though, and a bit more relaxing.

Another comment mentioned the two projectors in the patent — and based also on the "reminds me on an aurora" mentioned in the article, I suspect it's a kind of slow crossfade between the "slides" that makes the Auroratone more relaxing.

I checked out some of the other videos and their website and this looks really cool. I've attempted liquid light shows with an overhead projector and can never get it to turn out right. These liquid discs look like an easy alternative for a similar effect.

They are excellent for that yes! There are a few people making unofficial wheels too that you can find on eBay.

Here's a discussion about an outdoor called Fruit Salad Light Show that used a bunch of Optikinetics gear for shows in the 90's that might also interest you. https://ozrics.proboards.com/thread/2204/light-show

See also "Innerstrings" (Chris Tomsett) who has a vast arsenal of Optikinetics gear that he uses along with live video processing. Really great.

https://www.instagram.com/innerstrings/

Good shout. I was going to mention him but couldn't find any video of his oil wheel work. His combination of analogue and digital is really nice.

Both of these links are very cool and now I'm doing some eBay browsing

Looks like The Andromeda Strain.

This freaked me out. I saw ten creatures that wanted to eat me! And a few ghostly skeletal humanoids.

That was from watching it on my little phone screen. I don't want to imagine what would happen if I saw it on a real movie screen.

Maybe I should quit drugs. Or start using drugs. Or something.

Anything to make the monsters go away!

I’m a regular consumer of <insert drug here> and this video did absolutely nothing to me. It would make a great screensaver.

Perhaps if I was on a few grams of psilocybin… but sober it’s really just ambient art with good ol bing crosby.

Can you comment on these?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IU5MYV0CtpU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERPlfZn8JwE

Experimental art videos of similar sort I made a while back.

The first one is… uncanny valley disturbing to me haha. Second one with fluid is cool.

Yep, something always helps.

My visions were also mostly dangerous or about life eating itself.

Very cool. I'm not seeing an obvious connection between the audio and the visuals (I do see some kind of differences between the visuals for the organ solo vs. the rest of the song).

I can't believe no one has recreated the machine though. Perhaps someone will now.

Someone's HTML5 ... tribute? https://bits.ashleyblewer.com/portable-auroratone/?loclr=blo...

I don't think the visuals were derived directly from the audio track played with them in the film. The article has a good description:

> [Stokes’] procedure was to cut a tape recorded melody into short segments and splice the resulting pieces into tape loops. The audio signal from the first loop was sent to a radio transmitter. The radio waves from the radio transmitter were confined to a tube and focused up through a glass slide on which he had placed a chemical mixture. The radio waves would interact with the solution and trigger the formation of the crystals. In this way each slide would develop a shape interpretive of the loop of music it had been exposed to. Each loop, in sequence, would be converted to a slide. Eventually a set of slides would be completed that was the natural interpretation of the complete musical melody.

The bit about tape loops sounds exactly like something Brian Eno experimented with. I'll check my bookmarks.

Didya find it?

No. Maybe a web search..."Brian Eno tape loop"

I think this it:

How Brian Eno Created Ambient 1: Music for Airports https://reverbmachine.com/blog/deconstructing-brian-eno-musi...

That looks familiar - it was posted on HN a year ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33172448

The actual patent is more useful.

It's kind of a kaleidoscope where the moving crystals are fused into a solid mass, creating a fixed slide.The energy for fusing the crystals can come from either big lamps (carbon arcs are suggested) or an RF heater. Plus there's an air compressor in there to blow air into the thing to cool the material and stir things up. Then there are two projectors, which take turns displaying two slides.

It belongs to the class of devices for which the technology didn't really exist yet to do it right, but somebody managed to kludge a prototype into working. See "Telharmonium"[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telharmonium

I assumed the tape-recorded melody was the Crosby song. Perhaps not.

Visually it's not that different from a lot of current psychedelic imagery. E.g. the Eurorack video synthesis scene.

The creators most likely took inspiration from their personal experiences smoking reefers (probably too early for psilocybin considering it's 1940s, but possible too!).

there's always mescaline!

https://hermetic.com/parsons/i-hight-don-quixote-i-live-on-p...

Oh right! Mescaline became known in the US artistic and scientific circles a bit earlier than psilocybin.

"Neo: You ever have that feeling where you're not sure if you're awake or still dreaming? Choi: All the time. It's called mescaline, it's the only way to fly"

-- The Matrix https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdAMq5LdAvs

Isolated in 1896 and synthesized in 1919. Havelock Ellis described the use of cactus Anhalonium lewinii, or mescal button by Kiowa Indians (New Mexico) in "Mescal: A New Artificial Paradise" (1898). Aldous Huxley took mescaline for the first time on May 3, 1953 and subsequently wrote about it in Doors of Perception (1954) and Heaven and Hell (1956). Jim Morrison co-founded The Doors, named after Huxley's book, in July 1965 in Los Angeles, California. He formed the band with Ray Manzarek, whom he met at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television when they were both students.

Carlos Castaneda, himself a kind of enigma and his books controversial wrote his first book shortly after, "The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge," published in 1968,

No crystals, but artificial neural networks:

Somatik Blues https://youtu.be/crZ4myW0xVw

Neverendingstory https://youtu.be/OGyzWyH8Hi8

The "the screen is still zooming" effect I'm getting after watching 2 minutes of the second one is fun. I hope it stops soon, though. >smile<

Very cool, got some Jan Svankmayer vibes going there.

I, too, am ready for my monitor to stop zooming now, thanks.

This brought a smile to my face. Very quaint compared to what we consider psychedelic today but soothing

I prefer that one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghDlYgvod9k

Btw, if you know and love that legendary track, here is a making-of video, by Franky Jones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otckQ0zXmbM&t=990s

Wow that escalated quickly. The recommendation engine of Youtube now identified me as a techno-hippie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj5ZDfGGazM

Was this used in conjunction with other methods, e.g. substances?

I actually feel quite relaxed after watching this. Mostly because of the song choice, but visuals were also interesting.

Going to give this early EMDR a wee try later.

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