If we talk about immersive art, I'm sure that the first thing that will come to most people's heads will be something related to virtual reality, or perhaps some spectacular installation in which the audience can dive into another world. All that is related to immersion, but it's also possible to create fascinating spaces using simple tools, and the Dreamachine is a great example of this.
The Dreamachine is an invention of the 50s that arose from a hallucinatory experience of the writer Brion Gysin, who wrote this in his diary on the 21st December 1951:
“Had a transcendental storm of colour visions today in the bus going to Marseille. We ran through a long avenue of trees and I closed my eyes against the setting sun. An overwhelming flood of intensely bright patterns in supernatural colours exploded behind my eyelids: a multidimensional kaleidoscope whirling out through space. I was swept out of time. I was in a world of infinite number. The vision stopped abruptly as we left the trees. Was that a vision? What happened to me?”
At first, Gysin thought that he has been blessed with some kind of spiritual graze, but the truth is that there was a logical explanation, that Gysin knew when he explain his experience to his friend William Burroughs. Burroughs knew William Gray Walter's—a neurophysiologist—theories about the operation of the brain thanks to his book The Living Brain (1953), so he was able to give Gysin a rational explanation: a light flickering at a certain rate—like the sun blinking through the trees—can provoke perceptive disturbances similar to the ones produced by hallucinogenic drugs.
With this theory, Gysin went to Ian Sommerville, a maths student from Cambridge and Burroughs' lover. Sommerville devised a machine capable of provoking the same hallucinations that Gysin suffered during his bus trip. The design was simple: a cardboard cylinder with some holes, a bulb, and a 78rpm turntable. This rudimentary device emits a flickering light with a regular frequency of 8-12Hz, similar to the stroboscopes used in scientific laboratories.
The first name of this gadget was Dream Machine, but Gysin changed it immediately to Dreamachine for marketing reasons when he tried to sell it to Philips for its mass production.
Gysin saw his invention as a creative electrical appliance that will displace television. He dreamt of seeing a Dreamchine in every home. Philips wasn't interested.
Was the machine not working properly? Yes, it worked, it provoked visual hallucinations, submerging many spectators in a world of colours and shapes without using any chemical substance. Philips’ problem wasn’t that, it was that they were afraid of provoking epileptic seizures in buyers.
The Dreamchine end up being a device idolised for some years by beatniks, hippies, and other countercultural groups, but not a mainstream product. Does any of you have a dream machine at home?
FLicKeR
The Dreamchine was quite forgotten for some years, but in the 00s made a bit of a comeback thanks to some exhibitions and a documentary. The film is FLicKeR (2008) by Nik Sheehan. Sheehan explains how Gysin developed the Dreamachine and includes interviews with artists, scientists, and some people that have used the device. You’ll find artists such as Kenneth Anger, Iggy Pop, Genesis P-Orridge, Marianne Faithfull, John Giorno, DJ Spooky, Ira Cohen, Lee Ranaldo, etc.
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