ABOUT THE ART OF LIQUID LIGHTS !

DVD saves psychedelic art form!

The Liquid Lightshow is typical of the creative product that came out of the Sixties. It is made up from the projection of coloured liquids. Slides containing the liquids are heated by the projector’s lamp until they start to expand and bubble, resulting in a constantly moving, abstract multicoloured image.
The Liquid Lightshow became especially popular as a stage background at concerts by bands like Jefferson Airplane, The Doors and most of all Pink Floyd, who employed their own lightshow artists. The kaleidoscopic images, seemingly pulsating to the beat of the music, which gave an extra dimension to the perception of their performance. Soon, every self-respecting band in the late Sixties and early Seventies had a Liquid Lightshow and the phenomena spread to discotheques, theatres and youth clubs. It was the beginning of the elaborate lightshows of contemporary rock bands.

For all kinds of reasons this psychedelic art form fell into oblivion.  A good Liquid Lightshow required an enormous amount of projectors, coloured liquids and other equipment. Every slide was handmade on the spot, a very laborious process. Apart from that it was also a volatile/transient art form: the slides could only be used once. Every show was unique and one of a kind, so that very little has remained. As time went on the knowledge was lost and the lightshow artists retired. The projectors wore out and the necessary spare parts were harder to find.


So in order to preserve this unique art form of the Sixties for future generations, two Dutch artists came with a unique solution. Ed Visser and Arno Rollenberg released Liquid Lightshows on DVD. The Liquid Light DVD is the missing link between the creative 1960’s and our modern times.

The Liquid Lightshow:
From slide projector to DVD

Ed Visser’s first encounter with a liquid light show was at a Pink Floyd concert in Holland, in a local church hall on Ascension Day  on May 23, 1968. A hallucinating experience that started his interest in this art form.

Arno Rollenberg became acquainted a little later, at a party in 1985.  He was so immediately fascinated, that he used the 5000 guilder inheritance from his grandmother to buy half the Wonderland Lightshow, at that time one of the few still existing liquid lightshows in Holland. He performed at house parties, until the computer veejays appeared on the scene, and then sold his equipment again.

Forty years after the Summer of Love -  in the Summer of 2007 - Ed and Arno noticed a great interest for all forms of psychedelic art, except for the liquid lightshow, they started to think about a way to bring it under people’s attention again. They did some research and went  to a lot of effort to resurrect a number of old projectors and other necessities, such as the coloured liquids. They were instructed and advised by Wonderland Lightshow artists and regained experience themselves with a number of public shows. In Ed’s studio they installed the projectors, made many slides and digitally recorded the projected images. They manipulated them on an Apple computer with the latest software into a fascinating production:
The Art of Liquid Light on DVD!

   

An instant fountain of colours

The Liquid Light DVD is easy to use at home. Nowadays in nearly every household there is a DVD player available, usually connected to a big screen. And in many living rooms the beamer is no longer a rarity either.
Colours are not only natural wave lengths, but also individual perceptions filled with sentiments and emotions. With the Liquidlight DVD you create an atmospheric ambience in every space within moments. It is amazing to see how well the light images combine with any personal choice of music, from classical to pop.
The Liquid Light DVD is for everyone across the spectrum of ages, including people who go to concerts and pop festivals, people who visit stations,  waiting rooms, airports, shopping centres, quiet rooms and meditation areas. For deejays, veejays, musicians and other creators the Liquid Light DVD offers an excellent opportunity to let their imagination run wild.

On DVD because

The DVD is a genuine mass medium: simple, cheap and widely accessible. The number of households around the world with at least one screen and a DVD player is by now massive. There are also many public spaces with a screen.
Additionally it is really easy to download and copy without interference or jamming.

Arno Rollenberg, fine artist.
Organizer of multimedia  manifestations in The Netherlands. From 1986 to 1994 active with the Northern Lightshow, performances in clubs in Holland and abroad, such as The Roxy in Amsterdam and  Die Fabrik in Hamburg. As a fine artist active in several disciplines, a.o. ceramic objects and computer animation.

Ed Visser, graphic designer.
End of the sixties founder of Provadya, Zaandam – club for cultural experiments. Producer of the documentary on Europe’s largest revolving bridge, the Hem bridge near Amsterdam. Designer of graphic projects. Custodian of the Paradiso poster collection. Inventor of and ‘on the road’ with the mobile screen printer: www.blackbox1.nl.