Old fart's comments, experiences and insights

[lasermaster1977]

Douglas Adams was the best-selling British author and satirist who created The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. In this talk at UCSB recorded shortly before his death, Adams shares hilarious accounts of some of the apparently absurd lifestyles of the world's creatures, and gleans from them extraordinary perceptions about the future of humanity. [5/2001]Douglas Adams was the best-selling British author and satirist who created The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
In this talk at UCSB recorded shortly before his death, Adams shares hilarious accounts of some of the apparently absurd lifestyles of the world's creatures, and gleans from them extraordinary perceptions about the future of humanity. [5/2001]
Share & Enjoy.
😎

Good share point, dude. He does thread the needle well.

[lasermaster1977]

Something laserist said caught my attention.

Thinking back to "the primitive control methods" when using multi-line ion gas lasers as the projector's light source AND before we threw money at a problem to solve it...we took what we had and innovated.

We had hard beam flags to turn beam paths on or off, things that flipped into or out of the path of the beam on its way to a scanner pair or diffraction or lumia effect.

BUT, the ion laser's huge power supply had a simple 270 degree knob to increase/decrease the current flowing through the tube. As the current rose, typically first the red wavelength came up dim then brighter and as red's brightness rose then the yellow wavelength would start fading up, a bit more current drive brought in the several green wavelengths and finally the blues.

The beam flags could be judiciously used to reveal up to a four way combination of colors and their effects (scanned, diffraction, scanned-diffraction, lumia, etc.) The laser's PSU current knob allowed the laserist to fade up and down the wavelength rainbow in singles, doubles, triples or four colors AND pop-up a color and fade it down or pop-up two colors then fade the higher wavelength one down first on then the next lower.

On the downside, it demanded one hand if there was but one laserist, but if there was a laserist and an assistant it took only one of four hands for doing beam intensity control.

[Greg]

Something laserist said that caught my attention was mentioning that, if I'm remembering the comment correctly, Ivan talked about Cosmic Awareness. I can imagine two quite different meanings for this term. One being the idea that the cosmos has an awareness. The other being a sense of awareness of the cosmos as experienced by an individual. An idea on which perhaps Douglas Adam's Total Perspective Vortex was based. I'd like to know more about what Ivan meant when he used the term.

[lasermaster1977]

Something laserist said that caught my attention was mentioning that, if I'm remembering the comment correctly, Ivan talked about Cosmic Awareness. I can imagine two quite different meanings for this term. One being the idea that the cosmos has an awareness. The other being a sense of awareness of the cosmos as experienced by an individual. An idea on which perhaps Douglas Adam's Total Perspective Vortex was based. I'd like to know more about what Ivan meant when he used the term.

It could be as simple as what Carl Sagan said, "We are made of star stuff.", or to understand who we are, where we are, why we are one must have cosmic awareness.

[Greg]

It could be as simple as what Carl Sagan said, "We are made of star stuff.", or to understand who we are, where we are, why we are one must have cosmic awareness.

You're right. That's a third meaning I hadn't thought of. Like, simply knowing the cosmos is the standard model and general relativity emerging from a singularity, rather than being crystal spheres or a stack of turtles.

[TheHermit]

Something laserist said that caught my attention was mentioning that, if I'm remembering the comment correctly, Ivan talked about Cosmic Awareness. I can imagine two quite different meanings for this term. One being the idea that the cosmos has an awareness. I'd like to know more about what Ivan meant when he used the term.

It's a mental state of consciousness, like being 'far out', Bro.
Back in the days of hippies, young folks were searching for alternative guidance and divine purpose for the existence of mankind (Other than the religious teachings of their old fogy parents. Of course, it is every teenager's duty to rebel against their parents, because they're so much more evolved and intelligent.), such as the ancient wisdoms of astrology, Hinduism, guru teachings, Buddhism, Chariots of the Gods, etc. including hallucinogenic drugs, like LSD & mushrooms. Thus came Deep Thought's answer of life, the Universe, and everything being '42'.
LSD can create an amplified sense of inner awareness and an over inflated ego that feels god-like, as if an individual is 'at one' with the universe, aka 'cosmic awareness'.
That's why some 'trippers' believed they could fly and even jumped off buildings, which was totally awesome, except for the final few inches of harsh reality.
Others 'experienced Laserium' to increase their awareness of the cosmos, observe the intriguing cosmic beauty of krypton clouds and unforeseen cycloids dancing in the night sky.
"Sit back, relax, and experience Laserium, the world's greatest cosmic laser light show, at a planetarium near you." <queue the square wave sweep of the synth during takeoff>
Great marketing, back in the day.
Of course no one really knew what 'cosmic awareness' actually meant, but everyone wanted to find out. It's like achieving 'enlightenment' or 'nirvana'. One only needs to empty the mind and keep meditating... or keep returning to Laserium. 😎

[laserist]

I think "cosmic awareness" was just a placeholder for something Ivan felt that he could never quite communicate even to himself. Here we are in a universe that started out with hydrogen and a little helium, and now diamonds and graphite and wood wood oh my! Maybe the evolutionary nature of Laserium shows is part of that sense of the universe as something that has fought entropy since it's beginning. A Laserium show evolves - it's never finished...

[lasermaster1977]

World view...possibly the 1st step toward cosmic awareness.

I was exposed to this concept in an anthropology class (along with several years of astronomy, taught in a 40' planetarium at a community college) just a couple of years before I embarked on becoming a laserist/entertainer.

[sean1990]

https://photonlexicon.com/forums/sho...911#post362911

I appreciate and find it very interesting what others have experienced, if only to learn of shared common or similar experiences.

In retrospect, as someone in the right place...a 40' Spitz 512 planetarium, at the right time, not near any of the large, Laserium targeted planetariums, being one of several involved with the aural and visual magic of producing astronomy related planetarium shows, using an array of different special lighting effects and pan/tilt/zoom slide projectors, orrery projectors, with the right artistic and technical skills to cope with the planetarium directors request to "figure out how to do laser effects, here's a Metrologic .5mW HeNe". I was lucky and the next 12 years were enthralling, exciting, at times a bit stressful and terrifying, but always rewarding from an artistic performance standpoint.

On creating laser shows, planetarium based or otherwise, picking the soundtrack special effects and musical numbers, planning, experimenting and choosing how they come together, as a sequential aural experience was every much as important as the ebb and flow of the visual laser effects that accompanied the eclectic music. I got to decide these things, many times with suggestions from others, once with a committee of friends, that today would be called "influencers", spent hours with me listening to hoards of albums to derive a final eclectic soundtrack that became my signature show, "Laser Fusion". With nearly every planetarium laser show, regardless of the music used there was one ubiquitous sole who shouted out in the dark "RUSH!" I agree with @TheHermit, a performance soundtrack must have dynamics of all kinds, temporal, amplitude, mood, harmonics and dissonances.

The vibe between me, the person moving knobs, switches and sliders, and my assistant knob/switch twiddler and string puller, to render a visual color experience or spatial mood on the dome or screen and the audiences' real time reaction was as rewarding to me as it was for them. Playing a laser harmonograph to a music soundtrack is no different than drummer jamming with a guitarist and other musicians. At the beginning and for quite a few years, every show was a impromptu, ad-libbed laser jam. After a ton of repetitions every show eventually had well rehearsed guidelines for what followed, but every show was unique like @TheHermit alluded to. I was lucky, I got to choose.

Later, even when being involved with a few rock concerts or tours, Showco/Varilight typically was the sound & lighting company that sub'd out for lasers, I would be asked by whom every hired me to "come up with some visual thing during the bridge" of some number(s) or an intro, or do some kind of beam work on this number. It was left to me to decide what to do for a given time slot. I don't recall a time that I was overruled. That was true most if not all of the time even with corporate show clients. I was lucky.

That's my take, as of today.

It sounds like you've had an incredible journey in the world of laser shows and visual effects! With your wealth of experience and expertise, you might find the Monport laser to be a valuable addition to your toolkit. Its reputation for being very nice, easy to use, high quality, and affordable makes it an ideal choice for enhancing your visual productions. You can check out the Monport laser product on their website (https://monportlaser.com/?sca_ref=5031521.ka374VZjm3) to see how it can complement your artistic vision and elevate your performances even further. Keep up the amazing work!

[lasermaster1977]

No offense, but you are barking up the wrong beam.