Review of Lumonics DVD Series
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Don't
Let It Slip Away
Mel Tanner’s light sculptures expanded the traditional concepts of both lighting and sculpture, while involving elements of each art form. His revolutionary acrylic sculptures were viewed in the specific Lumonics setting. Having experienced these light sculptures myself, it seems clear to me that these creations were actually the seeds for the audio/visual work that Dorothy Tanner and Marc Billard have now produced. The medium of Mel Tanner’s geometeric expressionistic light sculptures has been refined and expanded to Tanner/Billard’s DVD productions, such as Pleiadian Dawn and Don’t Let It Slip Away, which can be experienced in an environment of one’s own choosing. The experience produced by the Lumonics environment was that of a sort of shrine. It is interesting that Mel and Dorothy Tanner first created this environment in the 1960s while listening to and under the inspiration of psychedelic music. The Tanner/Billard DVDs are an ideal marriage of light and color patterns with repetitive electronic music, the psychedelic music of today.
Electronica, the term that loosely describes several types of electronically generated repetitive music, is the logical progression of the amplified psychedelic music that inspired the original Lumonics environment. Tanner/Billard’s electronic music uses elements of minimalism, where a fixed set of notes and rhythms are permutated in several interesting mathematical ways. This is a process that can be traced back to not only 20th century composers such as Terry Riley, but also to Indian classical music and other ancient traditions. In the Eastern and African cultures, music is a means to enlightenment, not an end in itself. Tanner/Billard’s work invites the audience to be active participants rather than passive witnesses. This is part of an ancient science where musical and visual structures match specific states of consciousness.
One of the most important features of repetitive electronic music is that a set of frequencies and rhythms are repeated over and over, each frequency and rhythm coming back to the same place. This sets up a series of patterns in the nervous system of the listener, so that a specific psychological state is created. This teaches us something about universal structure. Sound is the highest medium through which we can experience the structure of the universe. If we believe that the universe is composed of vibrations, then we can understand how repetitive music, which the human nervous system can immediately assimilate, can lead to an understanding of universal structure. “Meditainment” works within this understanding. Going back to the ancient practices of spiritual chant, from OM to Gregorian, music has always helped human beings explore their relationship to the universe.
We know that certain combinations of color have
a profound effect on the emotions and the nervous system. When one
steps into the Lumonics environment, one is immediately transported
into states of both tranquility and creative stimulation. Tanner/Billard
have brought this awareness of color and shape into DVD, allowing
us to experience these sensations in our own environment, in our own
time. The colors and shapes affect us at deeper levels of the mind.
We feel like children again, free to explore and linger in this timeless
realm of color and sound, with nothing demanding us to move on. In
this space, we are free to let our minds wander in ways that we usually
do not have time for. The imagination is reawakened in ways that bring
us back to our earliest experiences of color and sound. What may
have long seemed impossible in our minds becomes possible again. Ideas
and visions that have been buried under the demands of everyday life
are given the space to grow and flourish. We find ourselves becoming
reacquainted with our dreams, and the courage to act upon them. Far
from being solely geared towards inducing a state of calm and tranquility,
these DVDs can motivate us to reawaken our own sense of artistic freedom
that, for so many of us, is often dormant since childhood. The stimulating
blend of color and sound encourages our minds to become more playful,
more exploratory, giving us permission to create. Tanner/Billard has
given us a wonderful tool for the mind, body, and spirit—a new opportunity
for us to rediscover a sense of wonder..
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Peter Lavezzoli
is a founding member and drummer in the band Crazy Fingers and also the drummer in the Teri Catlin Band. His
latest book is The
Dawn of Indian Music in the West that includes interviews
with Ravi Shankar, Terry Riley, and Ali Akbar Khan
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