Brion Gysin was a painter, writer, sound poet and performance artist born in Buckinghamshire, England in 1916. He became a huge influence in the beat culture of the late 1950's. He is known for his development of the artistic technique called "the cut-up." This is a method of destroying a printed text and cutting it up into pieces, then reforming it in a way that the same text is used but reordered. The dream machine was developed in the late 1950's. It was a hollow paper cylinder with slits cut up the sides and a lightbulb suspended in the center. It was placed on a turntable so it would spin on its own. The holes allowed light to flicker at about 10-13 pulses per second. The pulsing light stimulates the nerves in the eyes to alter the viewers brainwaves. After a bit of time, bright and intricate patterns of color would appear behind their eyelids. The pulses allow the viewer to enter a relaxed state, similar to sleeping and dreaming.
I found a strange but interesting video of William Burroughs and Brion Gysin, with some fragmented poetry as narration to the creation of some sort of project.
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