Recolección de la Información

Session Two featured two artists who have shaped the evolution of the modern-day light show. Joshua White is the founder of Joshua Light Show that created

mind-melting visuals for the biggest musical acts of the late Sixties (Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, the Doors, the Who); Willie Williams whose career as a lighting designer for some of the major rock tours of the last four decades, talked about his work with Stiff

Fig. 75: Left: Haroon Mirza & Jack Jelfs at CERN Photo by Sophia Bennett/CERN Photo courtesy Mirza and Jelfs Fig. 76: Middle: The Wave Epoch Performance, Brighthelm Centre, Brighton,

Photo XC Photography Courtesy Mirza and Jelfs Fig. 77: Right: Laura Buckley Photo courtesy Laura Buckley

Little Fingers, David Bowie and his enduring collaboration with U2. Session Two was revealing in terms of the trajectory of the use of light in live music performance.

The interview with Joshua White was insightful in demonstrating the use of equipment and analogue techniques in the early development of what has become the

modern-day light show. The striking fact is that the vibrancy of the ‘60s scene at the time became articulated through the light show, “it all just exploded at once, and everybody wanted to articulate it and to show it visually.” Also of significance was that light was given equal billing with the music, “the light shows came into existence because they took what was nothing to look at and everything to listen to and made it into something equal for the eyes and ears.” The Joshua Light Show didn’t rehearse beforehand and the improvisatory nature of the work became a significant part of its strength and sense of vitality. “We familiarised ourselves with the music, the light show that we did was never rehearsed, we rehearsed the techniques and then we improvised. The analogy is good progressive jazz, everyone playing is a master of their instrument.” What was also particularly informative was the detailed descriptions of the artistic process of creating the analogue light shows, the techniques being described as four main elements that were distinctive:

One: the liquid projection, which is simply mixing oil and water in curved dishes on a classic overhead projector, it’s good because the playing field is big, its 10x10inches it’s horizontal so stuff doesn’t spill, that was the most famous thing and when you hear about light shows, and exploding amoebas and rainbow this and rainbow that, it’s the liquid lights because they were very amorphous. Squish oil and water together all you want but they’re never going to mix, they’re just gonna make wonderful bubbles and shapes, so that was one primary thing.

Two: concrete imagery which we didn’t use much of, we used it in film loops which we made specially, which would appear in the centre of some visual effects, or slides which would appear for a moment and then disappear, the more concrete the image the less you’d see it.

Three: the full-colour wash, so we could go from a red liquid plate and it would slowly dissolve to blue. I’m very proud of the pure colour and to this day we still use

pure colour.

Fig. 78: Left: Joshua Light Show (1967-68) L to R: Stephanie Magrino, Joshua White, William Schwarzbach, Jimms Nelson, Jane Nelson, Herb Dreiwitz and Thomas Shoesmith www.joshualightshow.com ©2017

Fig. 79: Right: Joshua White New York (2019) Video still Jo Joelson

Fig. 80: Joshua Light Show The Mothers of Invention, Minnesota Theatre Center (1967) Photo Herb Dreiwitz ©Joshua White 2010 Courtesy Joshua White

Fig. 81: Joshua Light Show Terry Reid plays into a liquid and light explosion (1967) Photo Herb Dreiwitz From: ‘The Joshua Light Show Artist Music Journals, A Curated Series from Soundscreen Design ©Joshua White 2010

Four: the final thing which was unique to us was the recreation of the works of Thomas Wilfred, which we call ‘Lumia’. Thomas Wilfred was someone who I saw at the MOMA, he was a self-taught musician and lute-player and he had this thing called ‘Lumia’, it had different variations including the Clavilux, his performance device and what it was, was a screen, and on the screen you would see abstract images, they were not unlike the Northern Lights but different, it was that kind of abstract image. Wilfred made kinetic sculptures called Lumia. I was determined to replicate the look and it became the very important fourth element of the light show.

In contrast, the interview with Willie Williams demonstrated a very different language and approach to working with light. Beginning on a small scale in the era of punk rock, and working with the band Stiff Little Fingers, there was minimal equipment or time available for set-up or any desire to create an elaborate lighting design. However, over the course of his career, this was to change radically as Williams’s work with bands such as U2 and REM led to huge production budgets, truckloads of equipment, increasingly sophisticated staging and complex lighting design and video. And as the international tours grew in scale so did the venues, at which point all aspects of the production becomes carefully orchestrated with the intention to create a repeatable show for each and every tour date. Across these two interviews, the aesthetic development and technological evolution of lighting design used in music performance is made explicit. The early liquid light show of Joshua Light Show has been dubbed the “forefather of VJ culture”, and since 2004 when the light show was revived, more recent shows have been hailed by critics as “abstract cinema,”

“visual music” and “living artwork of organic complexity”.

Fig. 82: Left: Willie Williams video still from: Lumia Domestica at Wallspace, London (2010) Fig. 83: Right: Willie Williams Screengrab from Stiff Little Fingers and U2 concert, BBC News NI (1981)

Fi. 84: Willie Williams Screengrab from Stiff Little Fingers and U2 concert, BBC News NI (1981)

Both of these interviews build on previous research around the liquid light show conducted for the “Performance Light” section of the Library of Light book (specifically the sub-section “The Electric Drama — psychedelic light”, pp. 145-147) in which new relationships with light were explored as musicians sought to create totally sensory environments for the experience of their music. There are interesting aesthetic comparisons and developments between early forms of lighting in rock n roll and the current techniques, trends including the incorporation of media in ever-expanding forms and formats.