2020
Immersive Video
3 minutes 8 seconds
With audio
Supported by the City of Melbourne COVID-19 Arts Grants.
Introduction
Tralfamadol is an animated 360° virtual reality experience. It can be viewed on desktop, mobile or VR devices, and is best experienced with headphones for full ambisonic sound.
In Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse-Five, protagonist Billy Pilgrim is abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore who perceive past, present and future simultaneously.
In Tralfamadol, this experience has been commodified by pharmaceutical companies and legalised for mass consumption. But is this new wonder drug truly the ultimate mindfulness regimen? Or will you find yourself unwittingly mired in moral ambiguity? Perhaps a full-blown alien abduction could be just what the doctor ordered.
Development
Tralfamadol was largely created in Adobe After Effects and Photoshop. All of the animated characters in the film are composites, collaged together from old magazine covers — Amazing Stories, Astounding Stories, Fantastic Adventures, Planet Stories and Schoolgirls' Picture Library.
In many cases these magazines date back to the 1930s or even earlier. You can see the original covers in the magazine rack to the right of the cashier.
Most of the structural components of the convenience store were created from scratch using Photoshop, and the products on the shelves are made from a combination of scratch-built images and public domain graphics.
There are also several hidden references to Kurt Vonnegut novels. San Lorenzo brand "Rice-9" promises to be ready in only 9 minutes, and the healthy cereal "Goodbye Blue Monday" may of course be recognized as the alternative title of the novel, "Breakfast of Champions".