Revolver Upstairs
For an immersive place such as Revolver Upstairs situated on Chapel Street, some would say it’s more than just a club or bar, its place where you can call home. An environment that’s filled with many objects and attributes that communicates a homely, safe and exciting area but at the same time creates this very immersive space. If I was to simplistically state what immersion is, id explain it as a time where an individual or organism becomes both physically and sensory a part of the experience. This is achieved (in a setting similar to revolver) through the process of the individual becoming physically immersed in the real resonating space (Grimshaw and Schott, 2007) listening to the relative volumes and frequencies overlapping and pumping through the bass speakers that fill the room. Whilst enjoying the look and feel of certain stimuli, that makes your emotions and brain receptors run wild.
Over the years the question of what is a stimulus has been asked many times by analytically minded psychologists and theory based individuals. Sometimes a stimulus can be represented differently and can take on various amounts of names and classifications. First things first, when we are talking about immersive spaces and how these stimuli’s act as a driving force in creating a particular response to each individual that is in the vicinity, we must realize that the organism and its environment is a large aspect in choosing this stimuli. But what is always interesting is the question, what do we, as a collective say is a logical stimuli. It would seem that the concept of “stimulus” has been applied at two different stages in the sequence of behavioural activation—to aspects of the environment “A part, or modification of such a part, of the environment is traditionally called a stimulus” (Skinner, 1938, p. 9), and to aspects of the activity of sense receptors. If we break it down even more, we can make the assumption like many psychologists have identifying a stimulus entities two logical types; (a) objects eg. Lights, particular water cups, or cups in general, certain foods, couches, pillows, and (b) attributes eg, red, hard, triangular, sightly transparent things or even sound are attributes. Hilgard and Marquis state possible condition stimuli can even be interpreted as, “lights of various colors, papers, geometrical forms, rotating objects, . . . pure tones, horns, buzzers, . . . metronomes, electric fans, . . . flashes of light, clicks” (1940, p.35). Thus making the judgment that coloured lights, rotating objects, light flashes, sound, geometrical shapes on walls and smoke fall under this type of stimuli.
Revolver Upstairs or the nickname Revs is particularly targeted to a demographic from the ages 18 to 25, an audience that still goes out clubbing and likes to drink alcohol. Also the type of music that is played is electronic/techno/progressive, which also brings another crowd of people who are enjoying dance music and in some cases regular drug-taking individuals. Which every club has but revs also has had some recent deaths and over doses due to drug activity inside the clubs premises. However, that’s far from why this place always has a line going out the door every weekend and always people inside during the week. Its more or less because of the lively, interactive, immersive nature the club provokes from its widely loved music, their couches, pillows and tables everywhere allowing a more chilled out vibe.
As casual customers to revolver myself, I’ve found that a lot of the people that take part on a Saturday, Sunday and Thursday session are regulars. But why is it that they are regulars? As I ponder this question I thought the only way to receive the best perspective was to ask someone who stuck out to me as a regular. Therefore I asked a guy in revs ‘what makes this place so great?’, he replied it’s “the music, the people, the drugs and home-like set up”. He also went on to talk about how its quite an addictive place, since once you have had a couple good nights here you think ‘oh I’ve had that many good nights, if I go back I’m more than likely going to have another one’. This mentality brings up the point of how immersion can lead into addiction. Although it’s not the type of addiction where you’re gambling away money, its how individuals can be addicted to the immersive nature of an area or place. To become addicted to something, there needs to be a captivating force that tells you, you need to go back or you’ll miss out. This idea of missing out is a big theme for revs audience since the club prides itself on the music they play and they are always getting international acts involved in their DJ sets. So when they here some crisp, fluid bass constantly dropping and some live techno being played they know that if they don’t back it up the following week than they are due to miss out on the fun.
As we go on to talk about the music and stimuli in the room, it is noteworthy to highlight how all the objects and attributes form a successful immersive experience. Through the frequent sound moving around the room, bouncing off the walls, and into the ears of the alcohol infused teenagers, their senses are being elevated whilst emotions are being vamped to higher levels. As McDonald & Fisher investigate, integration of art and sounds in a certain space refers to “fruitful connections with and through the arts” (2006, p.9) and can sometimes be called the process of language immersion. In the process of language immersion, a foreign language is used as the medium for teaching subject content. The immersion language is not treated as an additional separate discipline, but a means for learning this language and the content of the curriculum together. In a sense you could say that the actions you take and language you speak, when living the life at revolver is somewhat different to how you would usually act. Now it could be because a lot of people are on drugs there ad it stimuli’s them differently. However I would like to make the conclusion that the stimuli of the different coloured (some primary, some secondary) lights above you, the cage around the DJ, the couches scattered around the room, with everyone moving from side to side in a fragmented pattern takes you on a journey and immerses you into a hyper reality. Whilst “the kinetic, symbolic, verbal and visual languages” (ACARA, p. 18) that are found at revs are taking a toll on everyone else simultaneously.
The aesthetic of revolver was definitely more suited towards adults and far more pleasing to the eye, the lighting was dim over-all and the colour scheme was toned down, no use of bright colour and blinds were shut in order to keep the sun out, and hide the sense of time from all the people inside the venue. I found it easy to engage with everyone around me, but also keep to myself and just enjoy the music in my own little world. The most immersive time at revs is when experimental DJ’s come on and just play random sounds and samples mixed together changing the feelings in the room and leading to the people to adapt to the change. It was really interesting to watch and see how everyone would slow down their dance for the music. Therefore, underlining how the space takes control of the speed and if the immersion is on or off radar.
In conclusion, through research theories and immersion subject’s in the club called Revolver Upstairs I’ve found that the design objectives – from large scale to small scale have been successfully fulfilled. Allowing the individuals to “encourage [their] creativity and social imaginations” (Albers & Harste, 2007, p. 3) through the immersive environment and groups of stimuli that is evident in the room.
References:
Albers, P., & Hartse, J. (2007). The arts, new literacies, and multimodality. English Education, 40(1), 6-20.
Grimshaw, M. and G. Schott. 2007a. “A Conceptual Framework for the Design and Analysis of First-Person Shooter Audio.” Paper read at Third International
Conference on Games Research and Development, September 10—11, at Manchester.
Hilgard, E. R., & Marquis, D. G. (1940). Conditioning and learning. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
McDonald, N., & Fisher, D. (2006). Teaching literacy through the arts. New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Skinner, B. F. (1938). The behavior of organisms. New York: Appleton-CenturyCrofts.