How “THOUGHT-FORMS” (1901) bridged synesthesia and mysticism, calendar synaesthetes map time in space, and a light sculpture that plays like a trigger instrument
“Thought-Forms, a strangeadjective / streynj / stranger / strangely / stranger / strangest unfamiliar as a result of being out of one's natural environment or not yet part of one's experience Isn't it strangeHow people can changeFrom strangers to friendsFriends in, beguiling, frequently pretentious, utterly original book first published in 1901, emerged from this ferment of late-Victorian mysticism. It was written by Annie Besant and Charles Leadbeater, erstwhile members of the London Theosophical Society alongside Yeats, and it features a stunning sequence of images that illustrate the book’s central argument: emotions, sounds, ideas and events manifest as visual auras.”
[icon name="picture-o" class="" unprefixed_class=""] “The Music of Gounod”, a ‘thoughtform’ from Thought-Forms (1901) by Annie Besant & Charles Webster Leadbeater
Espills is a solid light dynamic sculpture. Built using laser beams, laser scanners and robotic mirrors, it is inspired by crystalline formations. A set of geometric figures that float in the air and which suggest, in an abstract way, the transmutation of matter from chaos to order. Dust becoming crystal, being eroded and becoming sand again.
Each visual representation integrates its own sound design through sonification algorithms that transform light into music, completing this alchemical landscape.
Espills is also a digital handicraft exercise. Most of the elements that make up the work, both hardware and software, have been designed and built by ourselves: robotic mirrors, light drawing tools, laser modules, audio synthesizers, scenic media… All this engineering was put to the serive of creating a playable live instrument.
This video documents the results of a research residency made at the Ateneu de Celrà theatre. The project is still in its initial stage, and it will evolve through successive iterations.
more info: http://www.playmodes.com/espills
Chuckles + Daydreams
From the Maker:
“The two illusions in this study were developed to illustrate how stimuli that occur later can affect the perception of stimuli that have already occurred. Postdictive processing has been demonstrated within individual senses, but this work focuses on how the phenomenon can bridge multiple senses. The key to both of the new illusions is that the audio and visual stimuli occur rapidly, in under 200 milliseconds (one-fifth of a second). The brain, trying to make sense of this barrage of information, synthesizes the stimuli from both senses to determine the experience, using postdiction to do so…
The fact that the illusory flash is perceived in between the left and right flashes is the key evidence that the brain is using postdictive processing.”
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adjective / streynj / stranger / strangely / stranger / strangest unfamiliar as a result of being out of one's natural environment or not yet part of one's experience Isn't it strangeHow people can changeFrom strangers to friendsFriends in, beguiling, frequently pretentious, utterly original book first published in 1901, emerged from this ferment of late-Victorian mysticism. It was written by Annie Besant and Charles Leadbeater, erstwhile members of the London Theosophical Society alongside Yeats, and it features a stunning sequence of images that illustrate the book’s central argument: emotions, sounds, ideas and events manifest as visual auras.”
Wow – those light sculptures are pretty hypnotic.