Lightning Rod (Berlin)
Two-channel video installation with sound, color
27:41
2022
Single-channel mock-up:
The second in a series of two-channel videos that exploit pre-filmic stroboscopic technologies. Stroboscopic effects have been important in my work for quite a while, as both medium-centric elements of structural film, and highly affecting tools for influencing perceptual and mental states. This video, and several others that will follow, looks at the relationship between stroboscopic effects, mysticism, and prognostication (Brion Gysin, in talking about his Dreamachines, claimed Nostradamus made his predictions by staring into the sun and waving his hand in front of his eyes). This future-facing sungazing can be seen as a nature-based form of self-optimization, a nootropics of the ancients.