Threshold’s Intraference exhibiting at Breaking Convention 2015

A set of recurring motifs seem to feature in ancient and primitive art from around the world, spanning centuries, cultures, continents. Some have speculated that these motifs represent evidence of an inherent noise within the hardwired circuits of our neural networks. Certain patterns recur because they are generated by the very wiring of our senses – the electrical activity within the relay systems of perception.

Use of psychedelics can reveal these memes; calling forth this hidden vocabulary of neural messaging to visibility within the conscious mind; the infinite cascades, the landscapes of grids, patterns and evolving feedback spots; the memetic architectures of the hardwired neural voice we normally filter out.

Similarly our Intraference work starts from the assumption that the hardwiring of any electronic Audio Visual system contains within it a resident noise, usually filtered out as undesirable, which is capable of generating its own images without external input. The trick is to find that resident noise, to amplify it and manipulate it to find points of coherence within its chaos to reveal the latent image vocabulary that the circuits themselves contain. Introducing an external input device, usually a video camera pointed at its own monitor, extends the vocabulary of this inherent signal by feeding back in to the loop its own output; effectively creating a delay pedal for electronic light.

Our Intraference explorations into the space time dynamics of video feedback have brought forth images reminiscent of islamic geometric art, Polish folk art, Rangoli, the faces of Hindu gods, Aztec friezes, Huichnol peyote paintings and other hypnogogic forms. For this reason we are excited to have the opportunity of meeting academics researching in the field of psychedelic consciousness, to talk about our work and to be exhibiting Intraference at this year’s Breaking Convention.

Breaking Convention 2015

The 3rd International Conference on Psychedelic Consciousness

July 10-12 2015

University of Greenwich, Old Royal Naval College, London