Stroboscopic techniques have been used for over two centuries to generate altered states of consciousness (ASC).This practice-based PhD elaborates the communal aspect of these subjective states through videos and audiovisual installations that investigate stroboscopic editing techniques, drawing on phenomenological and autoethnographic framings of intersubjectivity and film theoretical writings on the human-screen relationship to articulate the social component of individual ecstatic experience. bells’ research uses stroboscopic techniques and narration to both evoke and contextualise the emancipatory potential of these effects.This will involve considering historical and contemporary instances of stroboscopic techniques, and using queer theoretical notions of liberation-in-passivity to update historical film theoretical framings of the passive film spectator as constrained. Drawing on the emergent field of decolonial psychedelic studies, carrick bell proposes a new model for understanding this type of ASC as communal and intersubjective.
Stroboscopic techniques (flashing light at specific frequencies) were used to study optical physiology in the nineteenth century and were found to cause visual hallucinations and ASC. They have since been used across a range of disciplines, such as weapons development, structural film, club environments, and sound and light machines intended for self-optimization. carrik’s research practice aims to provide new interpretations of canonical uses of stroboscopic techniques while highlighting pre- and non-filmic stroboscopes, linking overlooked historical visual technologies to contemporary understandings of the relationship between consciousness, perception, and communal experience.