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John Geiger
121 pages (Fall 2006); 1.8MB download
Soft Skull Press; ISBN: 1-932360-01-8
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It's unlikely you'll find a more fascinating book. The convergence of science and art, of great minds and visionaries, over a hallucinatory device is one of the fantastic untold stories of our century. Geiger's slim but potent book is a sizable contribution to the annals of science and pop culture.
- Calgary Herald
John Geiger traces the history of how a visual phenomenon first described two hundred years ago by physiologist Jan Purkinje has become the basis of further scientific studies into how the visual brain works, and how its repercussions have spread widely into contemporary artistic and musical culture.
The study of stroboscopic light began as a purely scientific study. Geiger's history begins at this point and goes on to study the transition to the art world that was pioneered by Brion Gysin, William S. Burroughs, Genesis P-Orridge and Allen Ginsberg. While the book is an examination of the intersection between art and science, it is also a study of major currents in Western culture by way of an investigation of an obscure phenomenon.
Not only was flicker central to the artistic explorations of the aforementioned, Geiger also finds intersections with the lives (and deaths) of people as various as Brian Jones, Kurt Cobain, Keith Haring, Ned Rorem, Paul McCartney, Derek Jarman, Paul Bowles, David Bowie.