Void Contemplation Tactics: A Fresh Online Meditation Experience
Introducing Void Contemplation Tactics
A virtual mindfulness installation series from your friend Cosmic Chambo
Void Contemplation Tactics is a new series of guided meditation videos combining video art, heavy mellow music, and readings from Zen teachers. This initial six episode sequence features 15-minute excerpts from my White River, Slow Flow project. Follow along at danielchamberlin.com and YouTube.
The kaleidoscopic images in each video are made from multiple overlapping slow motion videos of Prairie Creek Reservoir and the White River, mostly from sections that are a short walk form our apartment in downtown Muncie, Indiana. I captured the video in the late winter and early spring using a phone camera and a DSLR equipped with a macro lens.
The project began as an exercise in learning my way around video recording and editing technology. It eventually became an experiment in manipulating mundane amateur video to convey something elusive and transcendent about a small endangered river that has special meaning to me and my partner. There isn't much protected land in this region of the Midwest, so the White River Greenway that passes through our city is a frequent refuge and an opportunity to encounter herons, beavers, geese, ducks, whistle pigs, and other Munsonian creatures. It's also where Wife Rachel wants us to clandestinely spread her ashes after she's gone; thankfully, she's quite healthy at the moment.
The music for each episode of Void Contemplation Tactics was contributed by some of my favorite ambient, drone, and New Age artists including Wife Signs, Lunaria, PJS, Inner Travels, Mary Lattimore + Ornament, and itta. There is much to explore in each of their back catalogs, and I encourage you to support them on Bandcamp and elsewhere. Connecting and collaborating with them has been one of the highlights of this extended period of self-quarantine. You can find links to more of their work in each video description, and in my Bandcamp library.
The guided meditation is a combination of my Zen and yoga practices. It's inspired by my time living at the Indianapolis Zen Center, sitting with my dharma comrades, and various teachings from my dharma teachers (and former housemates) John Melvin, Lincoln Rhodes, and David Culp. The readings are taken from Joko Beck, Ezra Bayda, Lewis Richmond, Zen Master Seung Sahn, and The Tao of Physics.
I moved forward with this project after placing my IRL mindfulness installations at Healer, Magick City, and elsewhere on indefinite hold due to the ongoing pandemic. Upcoming episodes will expand to include contributions from a variety of video artists and musicians.
I'm especially grateful to my lifelong friend Amy Peddycord and Invoke Studio for their generous support of this initial series. The videos are included as part of Invoke's new online curriculum at invokestudio.com/onlinestudio.
Inter-Dimensional Music
• Fridays 12-1p EST on WQRT 99.1FM Indianapolis
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• Archived at mixcloud.com/CosmicChambo
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