Brion Gysin’s Dreamachine

Totally Dreamy

http://www.nypress.com/article-21398-totally-dreamy.html

Preparing for New York's trip with Brion Gysin's Dreamachine

July 6, 2010
By Nicholas Wells

She flicked the switch. Nothing happened. The light shone, but the
cylinder didn't spin. I was standing in artist Kate Specter's
apartment in Carroll Gardens, hoping to have my first
non-drug-induced hallucinatory experience using her Dreamachine.

Invented by artist Brion Gysin in 1961, the Dreamachine was a
precursor to the acid-fueled haze of the late 1960s. "The only work
of art you see with eyes closed," it is a cylinder with slits cut out
of it, placed on a turntable. A 100-watt bulb is suspended within the
cylinder and, when switched on, light is flashed between seven and 13
times per second, a rate corresponding to electrical oscillations in
the brain known as alpha waves.

Gysin imagined the Dreamachine after a bus trip to Marseilles.
Passing over-hanging trees, light from the sun reached his closed
eyelids at a steady-enough rate to induce the flicker effect, a
stimulation of alpha waves in the brain. Gysin described "an
overwhelming flood of intensely bright patterns in supernatural colors."

"I'm really sorry," Specter told me, "but mostly sorry for myself."

Gysin was not the first to utilize flicker to transcendental ends.
Since Prometheus, humans have been mesmerized by the brilliance of
fire. Nostradamus reportedly stood at the top of a tower, waving his
hand before his face so the sunlight would flicker on his eyelids
before writing his prophecies.

At the Beat Hotel in Paris, Gysin collaborated with Ian Sommerville,
a mathematician who had read W. Grey Walter's 1953 book The Living
Brain, which explains the flicker effect. Soon, the two built the
first Dreamachine on a 78-rpm turntable.

At the time, Gysin and William Burroughs were investigating the
mechanisms of "Control." That is, the established ways in which
people receive information and draw meaning from symbols and ideas.
In creating the "cut-up" method, they sliced apart pieces of writing,
pasting them back together to create unintended juxtapositions and
new meanings within the text. The Dreamachine allowed viewers to
explore their inner selves rather than simply consume media; Gysin
hoped that it would overtake the television as de-facto home entertainment.

While Gysin could not find investors who shared his desire to refocus
the public inwardly, the device lived on in subcultures and those who
continued Burroughs' and Gysin's attempts to subvert the tune-in
industry of mass media and plasticized culture. On July 7, the first
American retrospective of Gysin's artwork will open at the New
Museum, including paintings, text-based works and a working Dreamachine.

Like most activities having to do with subterranean cultures, there
is a tradition of viewers constructing their own Dreamachines.
Specter told me about high school friends who would set one up on
their parents' turntables to enhance acid trips. Even Kurt Cobain
owned a Dreamachine for a year before his death; the machine's role
in his demise was debated in a 1994 issue of High Times.

I decided to spurn further attempts to locate an existing Dreamachine
and simply build my own. Spending $20 at an art supply store and $10
at a hardware store, I called my friend Caitie and got down to
converting the plans for a 78-rpm turntable to run on my standard
(33- and 45-rpm) player. To give the cylinder a base, I sacrificed an
extra copy of Off The Wall, taping the paper tube around the record's edge.

We put on Spacemen 3's Dreamweapon and closed our eyes.

Once the after-burn of the 100-watt bulb disappeared, there it was: a
"multidimensional kaleidoscope whirling out through space." Colors
and shapes spinning and careening into a universe that seemed to
unfold beyond the limits of sight; it was halfway between iTunes
visualizer and coming into a dark room from a sunny day when your
eyes bloom and blister with the sudden change.

After a few minutes, images appeared, first in the periphery then
floating into the center of my vision. A death mask appeared and
stood transfixed as I tried to see the face. A lion, photo-framed,
seemed to exist alone then fade into the background like credits
rolling in a 1980s PBS special. It wasn't exactly out-of-body, but
images and thoughts coalesced in a dreamlike way.

Startled by a sudden rush of mid-century European political
iconography, I opened my eyes and was relieved to be sitting on the
floor with Caitie across from me, still rapt in her semi-waking dream.
--

Brion Gysin: Dream Machine Opens July 7, New Museum, 235 Bowery (at
Prince St.), 212-219-1222.
http://www.newmuseum.org/exhibitions/422/

.