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Dreamachine
The Dreamachine (a contraction of Dream Machine) is a stroboscopic flickering light art device that produces eidetic visual stimuli. Artist Brion Gysin and William S. Burroughs' "systems adviser" Ian Sommerville created the Dreamachine after reading William Grey Walter's book, ''The Living Brain''. History In its original form, a Dreamachine is a work of light art made from a cylinder with regularly spaced shapes cut out of its sides. The cylinder is then placed on a record turntable and rotated, depending on the scale, at either 78 or 45 revolutions per minute. A light bulb is suspended in the center of the cylinder with the rotation speed making light emanate from the holes at a consistently pulsating frequency range of 8–13 flickers per second. It is meant to be looked at through closed eyelids, upon which moving yantra-like mandala visual patterns emerge, and an alpha wave mental state is induced. The frequency of the pulsations corresponds to the electrical oscillations ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Woodard
David Woodard (, ; born April 6, 1964) is an American conductor and writer. During the 1990s he coined the term ''prequiem'', a portmanteau of preemptive and requiem, to describe his Buddhist practice of composing dedicated music to be rendered during or slightly before the death of its subject. Los Angeles memorial services at which Woodard has served as conductor or music director include a 2001 civic ceremony held at the Angels Flight funicular railway honoring mishap casualty Leon Praport and his injured widow Lola. He has conducted wildlife requiems, including for a California brown pelican on the berm crest of a beach where the animal had fallen. He is reputed to favor colored inks in preparing a score. Timothy McVeigh asked Woodard to conduct a prequiem Mass on the eve of his execution in Terre Haute, Indiana. Acknowledging McVeigh's "horrible deed", yet intending to provide comfort, Woodard consented by premiering the coda section of his composition "Ave Atque Vale" wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brion Gysin
Brion Gysin (19 January 1916 – 13 July 1986) was a British-Canadian painter, writer, sound poet, performance artist and inventor of experimental devices. He is best known for his use of the cut-up technique, alongside his close friend, the novelist William S. Burroughs. With the engineer Ian Sommerville he also invented the Dreamachine, a flicker device designed as an art object to be viewed with the eyes closed. It was in painting and drawing, however, that Gysin devoted his greatest efforts, creating calligraphic works inspired by cursive Japanese "grass" script and Arabic script. Burroughs later stated that "Brion Gysin was the only man I ever respected." Biography Early years John Clifford Brian Gysin was born at the Canadian military hospital in Taplow, Buckinghamshire, England. His mother, Stella Margaret Martin, was a Canadian from Deseronto, Ontario. His father, Leonard Gysin, a captain with the Canadian Expeditionary Force, was killed in action eight months after ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nik Sheehan
Nik Sheehan (born 17 March 1960) is a Canadian documentary filmmaker, who established an international reputation with ''No Sad Songs'' (1985), the first major documentary on AIDS. The film cited by world-renowned specialist Dr. Balfour Mount as "the best film on the planet this year". In 1995, he produced and directed ''Symposium'', inspired by Plato’s classic and featuring multiple views of gay love as performed by Canadian artists and writers including Brad Fraser, Stan Persky, Patricia Rozema, Tomson Highway, Daniel MacIvor and others. Premiering at the Montreal World Film Festival, it was broadcast extensively by the CBC, and created national headlines. ''God’s Fool'' (1997), shot in Morocco, tells the story of Scott Symons, a renegade writer of the Canadian establishment who had exiled himself to the seaside town of Essaouira. It premiered at the Toronto International Festival of Authors, where artistic director Greg Gatenby judged it "the best film biography of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hypnagogic
Hypnagogia is the experience of the transitional state from wakefulness to sleep: the ''hypnagogic'' state of consciousness, during the onset of sleep. Its opposite state is described as the transitional state from sleep into wakefulness. Mental phenomena that may occur during this "threshold consciousness" phase include hypnagogic hallucinations, lucid thought, exploding head syndrome, lucid dreaming, and sleep paralysis. The latter two phenomena are themselves separate sleep conditions that are sometimes experienced during the hypnagogic state. Definitions The word ''hypnagogia'' is sometimes used in a restricted sense to refer to the onset of sleep, and contrasted with '' hypnopompia'', Frederic Myers's term for waking up. However, ''hypnagogia'' is also regularly employed in a more general sense that covers both falling asleep and waking up. Indeed, it is not always possible in practice to assign a particular episode of any given phenomenon to one or the other, given t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ian Sommerville (technician)
Ian Sommerville (June 3, 1940 – February 5, 1976) John Geiger, ''Chapel of Extreme Experience'', page 90. was an electronics technician and computer programmer. He is primarily known through his association with William S. Burroughs's circle of Beat Generation figures, and lived at Paris's so-called " Beat Hotel" by 1960, when they were regulars there, becoming Burroughs's lover and " systems adviser". Sommerville was educated at the King's School, Canterbury, and at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Around 1960, he programmed a random-sequence generator that Brion Gysin used in his cut-up technique. He and Gysin also collaborated in 1961 in developing the Dreamachine, a phonograph-driven stroboscope described as "the first art object to be seen with the eyes closed", and intended to affect the viewer's brain alpha wave activity. Sommerville and Burroughs made the 5-minute tape "Silver Smoke of Dreams" in the early 1960s, and later provided the basis for the quarter- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Grey Walter
William Grey Walter (February 19, 1910 – May 6, 1977) was an American-born British neurophysiologist, cybernetician and robotician. Early life and education Walter was born in Kansas City, Missouri, United States, on 19 February 1910, the only child of Minerva Lucrezia (Margaret) Hardy (1879–1953), an American journalist and Karl Wilhelm Walter (1880–1965), a British journalist who was working on the Kansas City ''Star'' at the time. His parents had met and married in Italy, and during the First World War the family moved from to Britain. Walter's ancestry was German/British on his father's side, and American/British on his mother's side. He was brought to England in 1915, and educated at Westminster School with an interest in classics and science, and entered King's College, Cambridge, in 1928. He achieved a third class in part one (1930) and a first class in physiology in part two of the natural sciences tripos (1931). He failed to obtain a research fellowship in C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hypnagogia
Hypnagogia is the experience of the transitional state from wakefulness to sleep: the ''hypnagogic'' state of consciousness, during the onset of sleep. Its opposite state is described as the transitional state from sleep into wakefulness. Mental phenomena that may occur during this "threshold consciousness" phase include hypnagogic hallucinations, lucid thought, exploding head syndrome, lucid dreaming, and sleep paralysis. The latter two phenomena are themselves separate sleep conditions that are sometimes experienced during the hypnagogic state. Definitions The word ''hypnagogia'' is sometimes used in a restricted sense to refer to the onset of sleep, and contrasted with '' hypnopompia'', Frederic Myers's term for waking up. However, ''hypnagogia'' is also regularly employed in a more general sense that covers both falling asleep and waking up. Indeed, it is not always possible in practice to assign a particular episode of any given phenomenon to one or the other, given that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stroboscope
A stroboscope, also known as a strobe, is an instrument used to make a cyclically moving object appear to be slow-moving, or stationary. It consists of either a rotating disk with slots or holes or a lamp such as a flashtube which produces brief repetitive flashes of light. Usually, the rate of the stroboscope is adjustable to different frequencies. When a rotating or vibrating object is observed with the stroboscope at its vibration frequency (or a submultiple of it), it appears stationary. Thus stroboscopes are also used to measure frequency. The principle is used for the study of rotating, reciprocating, oscillating or vibrating objects. Machine parts and vibrating string are common examples. A stroboscope used to set the ignition timing of internal combustion engines is called a timing light. Mechanical In its simplest mechanical form, a stroboscope can be a rotating cylinder (or bowl with a raised edge) with evenly spaced holes or slots placed in the line of si ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
McFarland & Company
McFarland & Company, Inc., is an American independent book publisher based in Jefferson, North Carolina, that specializes in academic and reference works, as well as general-interest adult nonfiction. Its president is Rhonda Herman. Its former president and current editor-in-chief is Robert Franklin, who founded the company in 1979. McFarland employs a staff of about 50, and had published 7,800 titles. McFarland's initial print runs average 600 copies per book. Subject matter McFarland & Company focuses mainly on selling to libraries. It also utilizes direct mailing to connect with enthusiasts in niche categories. The company is known for its sports literature, especially baseball history, as well as books about chess, military history, and film. In 2007, the ''Mountain Times'' wrote that McFarland publishes about 275 scholarly monographs and reference book titles a year; Robert Lee Brewer reported in 2015 that the number is about 350. List of scholarly journals The follow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Film Board Of Canada
The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; french: Office national du film du Canada (ONF)) is Canada's public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary films, animation, web documentaries, and alternative dramas. In total, the NFB has produced over 13,000 productions since its inception, which have won over 5,000 awards. The NFB reports to the Parliament of Canada through the Minister of Canadian Heritage. It has bilingual production programs and branches in English and French, including multicultural-related documentaries. History Canadian Government Motion Picture Bureau The Exhibits and Publicity Bureau was founded on 19 September 1918, and was reorganized into the Canadian Government Motion Picture Bureau in 1923. The organization's budget stagnated and declined during the Great Depression. Frank Badgley, who served as the bureau's director from 1927 to 1941, stated that the bur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Optic Nerve
In neuroanatomy, the optic nerve, also known as the second cranial nerve, cranial nerve II, or simply CN II, is a paired cranial nerve that transmits visual information from the retina to the brain. In humans, the optic nerve is derived from optic stalks during the seventh week of development and is composed of retinal ganglion cell axons and glial cells; it extends from the optic disc to the optic chiasma and continues as the optic tract to the lateral geniculate nucleus, pretectal nuclei, and superior colliculus. Structure The optic nerve has been classified as the second of twelve paired cranial nerves, but it is technically part of the central nervous system, rather than the peripheral nervous system because it is derived from an out-pouching of the diencephalon ( optic stalks) during embryonic development. As a consequence, the fibers of the optic nerve are covered with myelin produced by oligodendrocytes, rather than Schwann cells of the peripheral nervous system ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
