I had a strong sense of déjà vu as I walked across Washington Square Park on a Friday night in September 2014, on my way to the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts at NYU to see the Joshua Light Show (JLS) as part of a festival where this psychedelic projection design dating from the late ‘60s was back on stage, not far from the Second Avenue home of the former Fillmore East where Joshua White and his original light show artists were in residence from 1968-1971. I was a student at NYU at that time, and the Fillmore East was part of the scene, with the Joshua Light Show sharing the stage with such bands as The Doors, The Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Chuck Berry, and Iron Butterfly, among other iconoclastic bands.
White, a multimedia artist who had studied lighting at Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie Mellon University), used a variety of techniques back then, from film projectors and carousel 35mm slide projectors to color wheels, aluminum foil, hand-painted slides, Mylar, watercolors, and images of musicians performing live, to name a few. The system back then was rear-projected, with eight 1,200W ACLs helping put the hand-created imagery onto a 20'x30' vinyl screen. One of White’s signatures was the “wet show,” where colored oil and water dyes were combined in glass clock faces and displayed via overhead projectors.
“For a traditional Joshua Light Show performance, a group of independent artists work together behind a 32'x27' Gerriets rear-projection screen,” explains White about the current version of the show. “Each artist takes responsibility for a specific light show element. The artists often move seamlessly from one projection device to another. Other than being familiar with the music, there is no formal rehearsal or planning. The light show is an abstract visual collage improvised to the music. The audience is left to connect the sound and light experience. All the artists are connected by wireless intercom. Our casual verbal exchange is about ideas, encouragement, and what we are feeling from the music.”
The updated version of the wet show includes layers of liquid manipulated by hand, often incorporating such elements as air, gravity, chemicals catalysts, and heat. “The show uses custom-built overhead projectors as well as vertical devices where the liquids are contained in multi-plane cartridges,” adds White.
Another element of the show is lumia, a process by which light is reflected on the screen always indirectly via mirrors. “The form is based on the works of Thomas Wilfred [1889-1968],” White explains. “The lumia artists in the show choose from many sources to reflect. The range of those sources runs from mid-twentieth century slide projectors to modern video projectors.” White uses an Apple iPad running TouchViZ to select the content displayed by a Sanyo PLC-XP200 LCD projector with a 2.3 to 4.2 medium zoom lens.
There is also a digital aspect to the Joshua Light Show, which first incorporated video projection in 1969. “In the past ten years, video projectors have become very powerful and financially accessible. The current generation uses a single video projector of 20,000 ANSI-lumens or higher,” notes White. “The art feeding this projector is created using the same techniques practiced in the analog light show. Very few digital effects are used. The full version of the light show seamlessly mixes analog and digital sources.” The main video projector is a Panasonic PT-DZ21K 20,000-lumen projector. The signal comes from a video switcher connected to three Panasonic DSLRs.
White also incorporates pure light, as he indicates, “Direct colored light, which is neither projected nor reflected, is a very important element. It serves the other light show parts by providing contrast and framing. This set of sources is categorized by color, speed, and function. The lowest speed is a wash of ultra-blue light saturating the screen. The highest is a single white strobe light used sparingly, very sparingly. There are dozens of other visual ideas in between the two extremes.”
Back On Stage
Today’s Joshua Light Show is similar in spirit to the ‘60s and ‘70s version, although even with digital delivery, “the performance is as it always was, improvised,” White points out. “The major difference is that now we can and often do perform digitally. In terms of modern production logistics, the JLS can make a wonderful projected show without any real rehearsal. Now, having said that, it’s important to emphasize that we find nothing wrong with programming and mapping. Furthermore, anything we create can be input and performed using standard theatrical technology. What is important to us is the basic art. Where do you start? What is the emotion, the motivation? What do you want to feel? The Joshua Light Show is successful because we provide a visual stimulation to sound, often live music. The audience wants to put the experience together for themselves.”
Moving beyond the original rear-projected, one-screen format, the Joshua Light Show has also explored front-projection and done planetarium shows, and would like to keep expanding its formats. “Keep in mind that the rear-projection show is screen bound,” White notes. “The down side is that it’s yet another rectangle. The up side is it hides and frames the mess behind it. When we do front-projection shows, we try to avoid screens, and our planetarium shows are always incredibly rich and fulfilling. We would love to get on an IMAX screen, not because of its size but because the screen design extends it beyond the audience’s peripheral vision.”
The nature of the Joshua Light Show is site-specific, and as White points out, “at the Fillmore East, our screen was 40' wide and glued the shows together. At Woodstock, the screen was almost 100' wide, yet it had no impact on the 400,000 people in the audience. I learned my lesson right then and there; bigger is not better. If the site is appropriate for a 360° light show, and the logistics would allow it, then we would love to make work for that format.”
Projection designer Zachary Borovay, who was at the recent NYU event, adds, “Josh White and I have known each other for many years and have recently been exploring the possibility of collaborating, assisting, observing, and dabbling. Josh is curious about how my theatrical experience might lend itself to the light show, and I am very interested in the improvisatory nature of the show. Every Joshua Light Show is designed in the moment specifically for that performance. No two shows are ever the same. It is a very different experience compared to designing for theatre, where we strive to make every show identical eight times a week.”
Borovay adds, “By combining classic handmade methods and materials alongside modern digital tools, the Joshua Light Show is able to create imagery that is far richer in color and texture than either medium alone. Unlike many of today’s modern digital light shows, which employ stock content, some of which is a blatant digital simulation of the original 1960s version of the JLS, the JLS imagery is truly ‘alive.’ It’s a completely hands-on affair, from the boiling of multicolored oils on an overhead projector to the live video feed of hand-manipulated reflected video content, and by hand-manipulated, I mean someone is really playing with the video reflections using bare hands. The Joshua Light Show is a true blend of pixels and colored light. Thanks to this combination, each show is a unique, custom designed, one-night-only affair. Like a visual version of musical improvisation. No two shows are ever exactly alike.”
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