The Joshua Lightshow...Freak Out

The Joshua Lightshow, inaugurated  by Joshua White, invented the oil based Lightshow as we know it. White describes it as, 'a visual experience that the audience could enjoy while listening to the music of the time.' That era being in the 60s.

All the effects were built from scratch & performed live in real time.
Here is an infamous film, recorded on 35mm film, 'Liquid Loops.'

 The Joshua Lightshow famously performed with The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, The Silver Apples and  Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention.
They even created happenings with Yayoi Kusama & were a guest feature in the infamous party scene in, 'Midnight Cowboy.'

White laid the JLS to rest in the 70s, but revived it as White discovered a group of younger artists, which include Seth Kirby & Ana Matronic of the Scissor Sisters, who loved the analogue equipment that created these shows. These days they their work combinse modern technology & they perform internationally in Galleries, Museums & prestigious venues, such as The Welcome Collection in London & The Planetarium in NYC.

For me the Joshua Lightshow are the godfathers of a type of visual music spectacle that has  influenced my own work.

I even collaborated with the Bardo Lightshow for my webcast, 'The Power of Projection,' I premiered on Nick Knight's Showstudio.
Here's a still by Matt Chaney

                                                                       Freak Out!