Psychedelic Aesthetics: Tangling Phantoms

A video essay uses auto-ethnographic methods within psychedelic aesthetics to explore cultural identity under transnational contexts. The film, Tangling Phantoms (2022), employs cultural symbols such as Beijing opera masks and mahjong tiles as 'semiotic sensations' to express anti-essentialist narratives. As a Chinese student in the UK, the author uses film techniques like superimposition, rapid editing, and over-texturing to create non-linear, fragmented narratives that challenge stereotypical notions of Chineseness. Sensory aesthetics are presented as a tool for sensational cultural memory, suggesting new pathways for experimental filmmaking and cultural studies. The practice highlights how personal experiences can create hybrid, fluid trans-cultural identities and redefine perceptions of cultural identity.

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Abstract

This video essay is an auto-ethnographic practice within psychedelic aesthetics in a 3 min film – Tangling Phantoms (2022), which explores the ‘semiotic fluidity’ of cultural identity under transnational contexts. This practice aims to express anti-essentialist cultural narratives, in which, as a Chinese student studying in the UK, the cultural symbols – Beijing opera mask and mahjong tiles – as ‘semiotic sensation’, signify author’s transnational/cultural experiences. Also, this research will discuss semiotic approach and fluid semiotics that engage with cultural symbols to create non-linear and fragmented narratives, in which the application of film techniques such as superimposition, rapid editing, and over-texturing provides an ambiguous interpretation of cultural symbols that challenges stereotypical narratives of Chineseness. This article asserts that sensory aesthetics serve as a tool of sensational cultural memory, which suggests new pathways for future research in experimental filmmaking and cultural studies. The approach of this practice highlights the importance of personal experiences that create hybrid and fluid trans-cultural identity. The findings from this practice, therefore, contribute to how art can redefine perceptions of cultural identity.