Performance
The Joshua Light Show
New York City 1967
When the Summer of Love blows its wind from the West Coast to the city, it brings with it new ideas, colours and sounds. It was in this atmosphere that Joshua White formed the Joshua Light Show, in order to provide psychedelic music with a fittingly intoxicating visual form and to turn its concerts into stunning multimodal experiences. The up to ten members of the ensemble assembled for these ends an entire arsenal of film-, slide- and overhead-projection equipment, conjuring up an infinite and breathtaking multiplicity of colours and shapes. Entirely in keeping with Timothy Leary’s rallying cry to “turn on, tune in, drop out”, the combination of music and light aimed to expand perception and broaden the mind. The rock impresario Bill Graham promptly booked the Joshua Light Show for his newly opened Fillmore East, which was quickly rising to fame as the “church of rock and roll”, due to performances there by top names such as The Who, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, The Doors, The Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. The Joshua Light Show concerts were immersed in a dreamlike world of images, which in the minds of the attendees will be forever associated with the sounds of these bands…
With its unique visual language, the light show has not only become part of contemporary popular culture, but remains the standard by which concert-visuals are judged. In the course of their growing popularity the Joshua Light Show have, for that reason, performed not only at legendary events such as the Woodstock Festival, but also in classical concert halls such as Carnegie Hall and the Lincoln Center.
Berlin 2012
The Joshua Light Show presents its light projections for the first time in Europe since the 1960s. Thousands of kilograms of equipment have been packed into boxes, shipped to Berlin, and installed on stage in the auditorium. Once in place, the magical-psychedelic gadgetry will be fired into action, overwhelming and sweeping the audience into the past, the present, and into places they have never been before. Together with CTM.12 – Festival for Adventurous Music and Related Arts, transmediale has initiated a series of special collaborations with musicians, bringing together historical and contemporary sounds.
Performing alongside the New York light-artists are the ambient musician Oneohtrix Point Never, the Norwegian group Supersilent, who are known for their entirely improvised music and, as a special highlight, no other than Krautrock / cosmic / minimalism giant Manuel Göttsching (Ash Ra Tempel / Ashra).
The following members of the Joshua Light Show will be present: Joshua White, Alyson Denny, Seth Kirby, Doug Pope, Brock Monroe, Ana Matronic and Nick Hallett.
A project by the Kulturprojekte Berlin GmbH in cooperation with Haus der Kulturen der Welt,with the support of the Kulturstiftung des Bundes
