Inside The Heads Of Mark Boyle & Joan Hills - Son et Lumiere for Earth, Air, Fire and Water

This comes from Warsaw exhibition "Rewolucje 1968" at Zacheta, Warsaw / 2008

The first public performance of "Son et Lumiere for Earth, Air, Fire and Water" was held at the Bluecoats Art Centre in Liverpool in 1966.

The Independent:

"Boyle and Hills became part of the glamorous counter-culture, moving in the same circles as John Lennon, Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull and creating light shows for Jimi Hendrix and the Soft Machine. They were also among the pioneers of that archetypal 1960s event the "happening". "


The Guardian:

"Boyle understood his projection of continuously dissolving patterns of light to embody "not just patterns of line shape colour texture, but patterns of experience". As with the rest of his work, the aim "was to do with not being exclusive. We're not going to exclude anything from what we make, whatever form it takes. There is no experience, no sensation, no aspect of reality we would eliminate." The light shows, which they stopped producing at the end of 1968, were a small part of a much wider practice that aimed "to include everything in a single work". "

Mark Boyle died in 2005, London.

J.L. Locher writes in "Mark Boyle's Journey to the Surface of the Earth":

"Son et Lumiere for Earth, Air, Fire, and Water :

'The presentation of earth, air, fire, and water by the projection of various chemical and physical reactions occurring in special containers in the projectors, with the amplification of the sound of the actual reaction, or tapes of colossal reactions in the same medium or with performed sound using the medium (i.e., rock movement, storm, fire, or waves).

'Earth: Crystallisation, Corrosion, Other chemical reactions, Amplification of sound of the actual reaction, or a tape of the eruption of Vesuvius or an avalanche or a live performance using amplified chemical reactions.

'Air: Project movement of air through the liquids, Various physical reactions are set in motion so that air passes through a variety of liquids with speeds from the gentle to frenetic, Evaporation etc., Sound of actual reaction, Tape of storm, hurricane etc. Performed sound (e.g. compressor).

'Fire: Burn various types of plastic in the projector, Amplified sound of fire (actual or recorded).

'Water: Project melting ice, convection, boiling water, etc., Sound: - sea, rivers, actual sound, etc.

'This is a rough sketch of a possible performance of limited dimensions. There is no rigid score. The performance depends on whatever materials and equipment are available. These events can be performed by one person sitting alone in his room. If he has a microscope or a projector and a tape recorder so much the better, but no equipment is necessary. At the other end of the scale there is no limit to the amount of equipment that may be used.' (27)

After four years of experiments with shows given for friends at home, the first public light shows were put on in 1964. The first public performance of Son et Lumiere for Earth, Air, Fire, and Water was held at the Bluecoats Art Centre in Liverpool in 1966, and many other shows were given in Bristol, London, Amsterdam, and other places. During this period Boyle continued to work at home with his family, repeatedly discovering - via the projector - incredible new images originating from all kinds of chemical and physical reactions, many of them induced by chance.

'. . . again and again we had the experience of quite suddenly realising that we had projected on the wall of our studio visual phenomena that we were pretty sure nobody had ever seen before. The whole family were involved. We had hundreds of bottles of different chemicals and many effects were discovered by chance, mixing chemicals at random. Some of the best things emerged when Cameron and Sebastian and Georgia had a turn. Then we would all try to work out exactly what the mixture had been. When we could repeat it, the formula was written down and we would all dance round the studio screaming and shouting with excitement while our new discovery flared and exploded silently on the wall.' "

You may like this film from 1967 UFO club:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7byv6v_ku7w

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• boyle
• hills
• psychedelic
• art
• performance
• son
• lumiere
• 1966
• soft
• machine
• hendrix
• ufo
• lsd

[hcgilje]

When was this warsaw exhibition?

[jaroshy]

"Rewolucje 1968" exhibition at Zacheta, Warsaw / 2008

[rush0543]

how is this done ?