Subliminal ways

[werlin]

I've allways been curious about this theme and how it's processed
So the question is:

Did any of you ever used subliminal messages while vjing?

from those who did here are a few points from where you can start:

whats your oppinion on its effectiveness?
what were the messages you were trying to pass on?
what was the message that the public actually perceived?
how did you constructed the message? symbols? signals? words?
what were the frame rate proportions used?
what did fail?
what are you thinking about improving the process?
and some sugestions of interesting messages that could be screened/that you are thinking about screening in the future

[vj_jasper]

a subliminal theme 4 me, is the interaction of natural and digital, and the way of the creative journey...
necessarily weaving pathways that interlink both... the concept of intuition versus knowledge being just another game, and really an artist has both worlds of rational and irrational to explore.

related to this concept is the idea of ever-expanding bird cages for the mind.

the ever-changing perspective of relevance is another subliminal theme for me.
the room of artistic understanding is like Dr Who's tardis time travel machine... it can seem smaller from the outside. and when looking back on where an artist was 5 years ago, in some ways the artist will reject their former level of understanding, and decide that right now they are much more enlightened and creatively effective.

a filmmaker friend who is travelling at the moment says she believes the environment and social issues are themes in visuals that european audiences would respond to.

[vjair]

are there not laws in certain terratorys about the use or non use of subiminal information? ( i might have asked this before actualy)

[werlin]

the laws only apply to advertising, not art, or else some museeums would be raid by the cops :)

[fluchtpunkt]

are asking about subliminal messaging as in fight club or as in the famous anecdote of ice cream (coca cola,...) subliminals in cinemas to boost sales of said products??

this kind of subliminal messaging seems to be very effective....
...in capturing the imagination of paranoids, generation tv and vjs :D

in any case, i think there has been quite a bit of research on subliminal messaging... showing that there are effects, however they are weak and wear off very quickly. most importantly, subliminal messaging only works with concepts that are already well established in a subjects brain.
the reason why subliminal messaging doesn't work all too well is simple: in order for something to influence you, you have to perceive it! of course, many hobby freudians will now start to shout, "but what about the subconscious?!". well that could be an interesting argument. however subliminal messaging borders the "subliminal" already at the lowest levels of perceptive processing (i.e. levels you can think of as "preceding" freuds' subconscious)... which kind of makes that argument irrelevant.
...
subliminal messaging is probably so fascination/scary because it raises the age old question of whether or not we ourselves are the masters of our own actions.
...
however, there are indeed countless ways of influencing people that are very, VERY, effective. it's just not the technically subliminal ones (...check out the recent threads on propaganda...). to give you a random idea to get you started: tv ads are more effective when you aren't paying attention. :devil:

[robotfunk]

I think subliminal advertising might work on TV (where people are sat down already hypnotisised) but not so much when VJing (where you have to fight to get attention, you're never gonna be as pretty as that girl in the corner)

I once put "I'm so sorry for stealing the champagne out of your dressing room" on screen for a full minute for a huge int'l star and no1 seemed to notice

[vj_jasper]

that sounds like fun - especially if the champagne was Bollinger.

in the eighties i watched a taped show of The Young Ones. in that show, they displayed an image of a green tree frog climbing from one branch to another. it was only for two frames. i was only 15 but i was able to go frame-by-frame with the VHS deck and prove to everyone the frog was really there.

[werlin]

fluchtpunkt where are those threads?
robotfunk, its not that hard to get atention,you can just flash an attention warning, it could be kind of tricky, when the screen its not on stage.... but i'm gonna have a gig with two projector on each side of the stage, and at least in psy-outdoor where everyone is facing the djs... so i'm counting on that, to practice some SDA (subliminal digital activism)...
but there's the thing i never tried it, and i dont know the best thecnical details on wich to try it...

[vj_jasper]

you could flash the words "Feeling Good Now." for two frames at the beginning of each four bars. then monitor the smile ratio every two minutes while doing that, then when not... could be an interesting exersize.

what sort of things did you have in mind for subliminal art.. like, is it an Art Motive, or for some other reason, like to generate more support for the environment ... you could flash the words "trees are more precious than gold" for something like three frames
then use one of those cool image softwares... adding many photographs to create a portrait, or even a written message.

[RayV]

some really old thread
http://www.vjforums.com/showthread.php?t=10678&highlight=Subliminal

[werlin]

thanks for the link rayv, reading it right now! :inf:
jasper yes the motive is a political\filosofical aproach,
i might do something with "drink coca cola" too but that sample will be a comedy sample on subliminal-ads :jester:

[BIOPTIX]

Woah! Anyone else know that subliminal advertising is STILL legal in the US?????

:terror: :terror: :terror:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6427951.stm


the reason why subliminal messaging doesn't work all too well is simple: in order for something to influence you, you have to perceive it! of course, many hobby freudians will now start to shout, "but what about the subconscious?!". well that could be an interesting argument. however subliminal messaging borders the "subliminal" already at the lowest levels of perceptive processing (i.e. levels you can think of as "preceding" freuds' subconscious)... which kind of makes that argument irrelevant.


From the article:

"The brain does register subliminal images even if a person is unaware they have seen them, UK researchers report.

The research, in Current Biology, suggests subliminal advertising is probably effective.

The practice, which was first used in the 1950s, has been banned in the UK, but is still permitted in the US."

[werlin]

yeah but for some reason they got a little something called fcc...

[fluchtpunkt]

Woah! Anyone else know that subliminal advertising is STILL legal in the US?????

:terror: :terror: :terror:


why the shock? why the fear?

i didn't say subliminals didn't work at all. i only said there are far more effective techniques at 'reprogramming' you... that seem very innocent.

[BIOPTIX]

why the shock? why the fear?

i didn't say subliminals didn't work at all. i only said there are far more effective techniques at 'reprogramming' you... that seem very innocent.

Call me naive but I'd like to think there was some consumer protection law against companies being able to push a product on the American public without them even knowing... no...you're right I am naive.

[vj_jasper]

i didn't say subliminals didn't work at all. i only said there are far more effective techniques at 'reprogramming' you... that seem very innocent.
here is one way: disruption of time-placement. cults use this to gain more compliance and info take-up of members. tv does it too.

for example ... watching a show on channel ten on thusday night, they will do their quick program times for the night, showing a screen showing what is on at 7:30, 9:00, 11:15 for that evening. innocent enough ... then, later, they show what is on friday night... of course with the title 'friday night on ten' ... except the graphic design is exactly the same, the colours exactly the same.. the way they present the timetable is to disorient the viewer slightly, to make them more open to suggestions by the tv station.

[deepvisual]

I was just watching a hollywood movie that has some subliminal clips in it.

one of the reasons The Ring, is so scary is there are stop frame animations of less than 3 frames. people's faces distort hideously as they are killed.
this is so fast, the conscious doesn't pick it up, but when the same image is flashed up later on and held long enough for you to see it, it really does have a lot of impact..

try slo-mo viewing the scene very near the end, where Samara crawls out of the TV screen. the stop frame is on the guy's face as he dies....

[asterix]

Its pretty interesting. But imagine if you could use it for good as well. Subliminal 'your feeling great - have no inhibitions' type stuff.

[zambari]

one frame inserts in the stream is a very old understanding of 'subliminal'. There are many ways of showing a symbol, without actually showing its direct graphic form.
One of them is to make some shape of light and colour on the screen using composition techniques (I mean photographic meaning of composition, not ae), so that content when you focus on it seems innocent, but is something diffrent when you see it from a distance or an angle.
Other is to compose parts of image in time, to make actual symbol in your brain utilising after-images. And I there are many more, using colors, editing, timing, lines etc.
No law can ban those.

[sharpie]

Is there any evidence this kind of thing really works? What makes people notice or obey a subliminal message more than a normal, overt one? I would love to see if any studies have proven it really works...

[zambari]

the whole trick with subliminal is that you don't notice ;)

it makes you feel certain way.

it may suggest you some thoughts, that seconds later you think, not ever knowing they were infulenced.

like horror movies are playing with your subconsciousness, nothing scary happens, guy walks a street, but it takes too long, it's too quiet, and why is the wind blowing so irregularry.

it turns on a subconscious feel of danger, without verbal or other information about danger.

there are many myths about subliminal ways, as if you could always tell between subliminal and non-subliminal.

[stulloyd]

Its seems that the designers of the London Olympics logo video included a message for epileptics to "have a fit"

Clever. ;)

stu

[Motionreactor]

haha, yes the theme of London 2012 seems to be 80's epilepsy

[antonylord]

Try slowing down some close-up porn (or something suggestive) with massive gaussian blur.

It might look like a really slow moving fuzzy background but squint and look closer...