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December 01, 2008

Bryon Gysin 'dream machine' doc, Flicker, cameos by Iggy Pop, Lee Renaldo and Marianne Faithfull...

National Post (Canada) | Read Full Story >

A renaissance man, Gysin was a writer, an artist, and, perhaps most of all, an innovator; he was the originator of the “cut-up” technique (the literary process later used by Burroughs and others in which text is literally cut up, rearranged at random and reconstructed to make a new work). [Director] Sheehan, though, chooses to focus on the life of Gysin by filtering it through another one of his inventions: the dream machine.

The machine uses flickering light to induce “alpha wave activity in the brain” that is akin to dreaming, at least theoretically (see sidebar). Gysin believe the machine could one day supplant television and film as the dominant medium, a device that allowed people to make “their own spiritual movies.”

Lugging around his own homemade dream machine, Sheehan visits New York, France, Morocco and England to interview those who knew Gysin, those who’ve used the machine in the past, and those still inspired by his work. Cameos come from the likes of songstress Marianne Faithfull, punk icon Iggy Pop, DJ Spooky and Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo, who says using the dream machine is “really like touching God.”


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