“Dreamachine”-Maxim Ksuta, Brion Gysin and William S. Burroughs – Gorky Park Site-specific installation project
by maxksuta
The dreamachine (or dream machine) is a stroboscopic flicker device that produces visual stimuli. Artist Brion Gysin and William S. Burroughs‘s “systems adviser”Ian Sommerville created the dreamachine after reading William Grey Walter‘s book, The Living Brain
A dreamachine is “viewed” with the eyes closed: the pulsating light stimulates the optical nerve and alters the brain’s electrical oscillations. The user experiences increasingly bright, complex patterns of color behind their closed eyelids. The patterns become shapes and symbols, swirling around, until the user feels surrounded by colors. It is claimed that using a dreamachine allows one to enter a hypnagogic state.[4] This experience may sometimes be quite intense, but to escape from it, one needs only to open one’s eyes
Proposal for Gorky Park, , and under the patronage of the Centre for Contemporary Art “Garage”
Maxim Ksuta 