textfiles/occult/media.asc

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***   Log start at 17:38 on 2-04-92
***     Connected to: Hoffman Foundation
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Excerpt from: "Expanded Cinema" by Gene Youngblood.
               E.P.Dutton & Company, New York, 1970
               pages 359-364
 
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            Cerebrum: Intermedia and the Human Sensorium
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The technology to produce such environments as [previously described] has
existed for some time; what has not been available is the necessary
consciousness. Man has been so busy proving his right to live that he has not
learned /how/ to live. Thus we can exist in an environment almost totally
bereft of aesthetic sensibilities; we are conditioned by architecture of the
most vulgar design; our entertainment is of the lowest level of conditioned
response to formulas; our traditional mode of interpersonal relationships is
practically bankrupt of integrity; the economic system forces us to act for
"profit" rather than use; there is hypocrisy and violence everywhere.
Disneyland is this culture's idea of a sensorium.
 
Yet the evolution of intermedia, from the primitive shadow show to Wilfred's
color organs to the cybernetic phantasmagorias of contemporary world
expositions,  indicates an increasing human capacity to assimilate and
comprehend more complex environmental stimuli. The existence of something
like New York's "Cerebrum," therefore, is hardly surprising: it is one of
many current phenomena that constitute a pattern-event toward the eupsychia
that is implicit in the intermedia experience as a kind of
sensory-stimulation laboratory.
 
Cerebrum is among the first indications of an imminent trend that
simultaneously will transform and unite those disparate social experiences
characterized by "nightclubs" on the one hand and "art galleries" on the
other. Cerebrum is neither. There's nothing for sale at Cerebrum except time.
And although certain synthetic events do occur,m they are such that one's
relative participation determines their effectiveness. So one could say that
Cerebrum  not only isn't an object, it doesn't even lay claim to an
identifiable, marketable experience; that's because Cerebrum (the place)
exists in cerebrum (the mind). Fundamentally, one purchases three hours of
time in which to practice leisure, decision-making, interpersonal
responsibility, body awareness, and sensory perception; Cerebrum's "guides"
supply the necessary intermedia environment.
 
An evening at Cerebrum follows from Form to Structure to Place. You get out
of the cab in a sleazy slum neighborhood and ring a buzzer. The door opens
automatically and closes behind you, locking. You find yourself in a small
black cubicle about four feet square. A hidden speaker asks your name, and
after a few minutes one of the walls opens. You are led to an anteroom where
you are asked to remove your shoes. A boy and a girl, obviously nude beneath
diaphanous flowing gowns, lead you down a narrow corridor to a large white
rectangular space.
 
This is the Form level: from a dark closet to a larger room, down a narrow
hallway to an open space. Next comes the Structural experience: the floor
actually is a raised, carpeted platform sectioned into geometrical islands
inset with electronic control panels.
 
These islands are approximately three feet above the real floor, and you are
forced to pay close attention to where you step.
 
The guides lead you to a particular island (there are about ten of them, each
accommodating four persons). You are instructed to put on a gown, and are
invited to remove beneath it as much of your clothing as you desire. Glancing
around, it becomes obvious that nearly everyone is nude beneath his gown, so
you strip. The sensation is delicious, especially for men, who are not
accustomed to being naked beneath a long silk gown. One is immediately
self-conscious, but not embarrassed; one simply becomes fascinated with the
feel of one's own body in its silken envelope.
 
The first half-hour of the three-hour "session" is spent adjusting to the
environment, staring at bodies as they pass in silhouette, wondering what to
do with yourself, and finally venturing off your island to walk among the
other guests, feeling the air on your skin: this is the Place experience. A
noticeably eclectic selection of music (from polkas to swing-era ballads,
ragas, rock, symphonies) seems to come from nowhere in particular, and a cool
passive light show plays ambiently across the walls an ceiling. Eventually,
the guides pass around tambourines, gongs, triangles, and flutes, encouraging
everyone to play along with the Muzak.
 
 
 
During this time I began to notice what for me was the most interesting
aspect of the experience. People began to act out their fantasies, get into
their own realities, perform anonymous little psychodramas. One
refined-looking, silver-haired, middle-aged gentleman knelt and gazed
lovingly at his matronly wife as she danced before him like Scheherazade,
palms pressed together over her head, hips swaying in silhouette. It was,
perhaps, a fantasy they had ever realized in the privacy of their own
bedroom. Elsewhere, a beautiful young girl who wouldn't remove her panties
was "raped" by her husband, who peeled them off beneath her gown as his
friend held her arms. She squealed in mock anger and false modesty, but an
hour later could be seen twirling about the room like a ballerina, her gown
flying far above her shapely hips.
 
Thus, for some, Cerebrum becomes an excuse to do and say things they might
not otherwise attempt. The two examples I've cited occurred rather
anonymously, and probably went unnoticed by most of the guests. The nature of
Cerebrum is such that it would be difficult to create an unpleasant scene.
 
I found the unisex effect of the gowns quite stimulating. At one point male
guides cam around with mint-flavored menthol ice that they smeared on our
lips with their fingertips. "What does it taste like?" they inquired softly,
as though not expecting an answer. This intimate contact with a complete
stranger in a relatively "public" setting was a challenging experience,
particularly for men, who are not as disposed as women to physical intimacies
in public. The young men were followed by girls who daubed our foreheads with
a similar skin-tingling substance. These sensual encounters had an ethereal,
gentle, transcendental effect. One appreciates the delicacy and poise
necessary to accomplish them without embarrassment.
 
Then the guides began collecting guests together in groups of six. They
instructed us to form circles and clasp hands in the center, like spokes of a
wheel. They squirted hand cream into the tangle of fingers as we closed our
eyes and felt our hands melt into others, rubbing and squeezing anonymous
flesh. We then lay on our backs, touching in the center of the circle, and
wiggled our toes  against one another as the guide squirted them with the
slippery cream. The effect was extraordinarily erotic.
 
At one point a scented fog was released from beneath the platforms, filling
the space with an eerie haze through which one could see ghostly figures
moving and dancing. Needles of light from a mirror-globe  cut through the fog
like electrons in a cloud chamber; it was beautiful. Next a huge parachute
was spread out; half  of the guests lay on the floor beneath the parachute as
the other half stood around its circumference, raising and lowering it to form
a suction that lifted gowns, and exposed bodies, but no one cared; we just
closed our eyes and enjoyed the sensation, rather like dreaming that one's
bed is flying away.
 
All the senses were stimulated in various subtle ways: the touch and taste of
the camphor ice on the lips, the slippery intermingling of hands and feet,
the scent of vapors, the kinetic stimulation of the light show and parachute,
the visual alterations in the general level of luminosity that also affected
one's perception of forms and distances. Bits of melon and fruit were passed
around, as well as a communal mug of Coke. There was no sensation-numbing
alcohol.
 
A kind of hypnotic centering took place  when a giant balloon, anchored to an
outlet in the center of the floor, began inflating slowly with a loud steady
hiss. The balloon was illuminated from a spotlight on the floor beneath it
and glowed eerily as the houselights were dimmed. Everyone sat in the lotus
position  and gazed as the luminescent sphere loomed above our heads. Then it
was deflated just as slowly. A simple but effective experience.
 
 
 
At Cerebrum one is a voyeur, exhibitionist, and participant. One is both male
and female. One is a walking sensorium. Surely we can foresee that
not-too-distant day when "nightclubs" will be operated by art dealers who
commission artist-guides to create ecological-experience places that will
resemble Cerebrum in many respects. In other ways, however, the intermedia
palaces of the near future will embrace bold new vistas of human experience.
"I can envision a world in which people's lives are recorded," says
intermedia artist Tom DeWitt, "and a massive amount of material is
accumulated, vast libraries, and people who never meet other people but just
spend their lives editing audio-visual records of their own existence. When
you look at a mixed-media show there's an  awful lot of information; it's
beyond the comprehension capabilities of most people. But if it were an
intermedia show made for an individual whose life was being portrayed, he
could relate to it. I can imagine people having traumatic experiences in such
an environment and coming to some idea of who they really are." In the pages
that follow, I hope to demonstrate that intermedia art is but another path in
man's ancient search for himself...
 
-----------------------------------------------------------25JAN92-----------


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