Brion Gysin and William Burroughs with the Dreamachine, 1972. Charles Gatewood, Creator offered
For millennia, individuals have used mind-altering methods to attain totally different states of consciousness, envision religious figures, join with nature, or just for the enjoyable of it. Psychedelic substances, particularly, have a protracted and controversial historical past. However for simply as lengthy, individuals have been having these experiences with out medication too, utilizing rhythmic methods similar to rocking, chanting or drumming.
Maybe essentially the most highly effective strategy of this sort is flickering mild, referred to as “ganzflicker”. Ganzflicker results could be achieved by turning a lightweight on and off, or by alternating colors in a fast, rhythmic sample (like a strobe). This may create an prompt psychedelic expertise.
Ganzflicker elicits putting visible phenomena. Individuals can see geometric shapes and illusory colors however generally additionally advanced objects, similar to animals and faces – all with none chemical stimulants. Typically ganzflicker may even result in altered states of consciousness (similar to dropping a way of time or house) and feelings (starting from concern to euphoria).
Though its results are little recognized at present, ganzflicker has influenced and impressed many individuals by means of the ages, together with the 2 of us. We’re an artwork historian and mind scientist working collectively on an interactive showcase of ganzflicker methods utilized in science and artwork. Our collaboration has culminated within the museum exhibition “Ganzflicker: artwork, science, and psychedelic expertise”, which is a part of the 2022 Being Human pageant.
Ganzflicker’s results had been first documented in 1819 by the physiologist Jan E. Purkinje. Purkinje found that illusory patterns might seem if he confronted the solar and waved his hand in entrance of his closed eyelids.
From Jan E. Purkinje’s documentation of the subjective visible phenomena he noticed when he waved his hand in entrance of his closed eyes.
Creator offered
Close to the tip of the nineteenth century, an English toymaker and beginner scientist, Charles Benham, produced the primary commercially out there flicker system: a high with a monochrome sample that, when spun, produced illusory colors that swirled across the disc.
Modified variations of Benham’s “synthetic spectrum high” had been utilized in experiments nicely into the twentieth century. William Gray Walter, a pioneering neurophysiologist and cybernetician, pushed flicker results additional by utilizing electrical strobe lights, synchronised with the mind’s rhythms.
Fascinated by the mind-altering potential of Walter’s equipment, the artist Brion Gysin, in collaboration with author William S. Burroughs and mathematician Ian Sommerville, invented the Dreamachine (1962).
The swinging 60s of drug-free psychedelics
A Dreamachine consists of an upright cylinder with patterns lower into it and a lightbulb suspended at its centre. When spun on a turntable at 78rpm, the flickering patterns (considered by means of closed eyelids) may cause trance-like hallucinations.
Gysin considered the Dreamachine as a brand new form of art work – “the primary artwork object to be seen with the eyes closed” – and a type of leisure, which he believed might exchange the tv. Others noticed the Dreamachine’s potential to be a supply of religious inspiration.
Burroughs thought it could possibly be used to “storm the citadels of enlightenment”. The poet Alan Ginsberg mentioned: “It units up optical fields as non secular and mandalic as hallucinogenic medication – it’s like with the ability to have jewelled biblical designs and landscapes with out taking chemical substances.”
Flicker experiments in artwork didn’t cease with the Dreamachine. Others included Tony Conrad’s groundbreaking structuralist movie The Flicker (1966), which was the primary art work to incorporate the warning “could induce epileptic seizures or produce gentle signs of shock therapy in sure individuals”.
The conceptual artist James Turrell’s Bindu Shards (2010) was an enclosed globe that bombards the observer with strobe mild. And, extra just lately, Collective Act created its personal Dreamachine (2022) , a public planetarium-style art work impressed by Gysin’s which toured the UK.
The science of ganzflicker
200 years after Jan Purkinje documented the physiological properties of ganzflicker, scientists nonetheless shouldn’t have a definitive rationalization for the way it works.
A current idea proposes that visible phenomena could also be the results of interactions between exterior flicker and the mind’s pure rhythmic electrical pulses, with extra intense photographs manifesting when the frequencies of flicker and the mind are closest.
Additionally it is doubtless {that a} robust visible flicker influences mind states. Significant visions, altered acutely aware states and heightened feelings could also be the results of imaginative suggestion, which is amplified by the trance-inducing properties of rhythmic stimulation.
What is maybe strongest about ganzflicker is its universality. Engineers, mathematicians, artists, historians and scientists have all been united by this modest, drug-free technique of eliciting dramatic adjustments in consciousness. The brand new wave of recognition on this matter will undoubtedly result in illuminating discoveries within the coming years.
Matthew MacKisack acquired funding for this exhibition from the Being Human pageant, the UK’s nationwide pageant of the humanities, happening 10–19 November 2022. Led by the Faculty of Superior Examine, College of London, in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Analysis Council and the British Academy. For additional data please see beinghumanfestival.org.
Reshanne Reeder acquired funding for this exhibition from the Being Human pageant, the UK’s nationwide pageant of the humanities, happening 10–19 November 2022. Led by the Faculty of Superior Examine, College of London, in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Analysis Council and the British Academy. For additional data please see beinghumanfestival.org.
