Gary Panter blog

Q. How can I do my own little lightshow?

A. When I started doing lightshows and shadow puppets, I liked to work small and intimate because it is easy and friendly. That is what I suggest you do at first.

1. Divide a room in half by hanging bedsheets in the middle of the room. One side of the room is the audience (1-10 people). The other side of the room is the lightshow performance area.

2. Get some light sources: flashlights, xmas lights, slide projector, candles. In color and in white light, even a black light or little strobe lights. Put them in the performance side.

3. Get shiny stuff: mylar, laser etched bumper stickers, sequined clothing, mirrors, crystals, glass bricks. Array them in the performance side.

4. Get a bunch of beat boxes and weird tapes and a live musician to run them. Put them against the back wall on the performance side.

5. Put the audience in the empty audience side on pillows with some drinks and snacks. Burn a little incense and turn out the lights.

6. Turn all the tapes on at once. Let the musician play with the tapes and add live sounds if he/she wants.

7. Shoot the little lights AWAY FROM THE SHEETS and at the shiny stuff. Bounce the light back at the sheets and through the crystals and glass bricks and off the crumpled mylar and ALSO THROUGH PAPER STENCiLS that interrupt the light.

8. Interpret the music. Have fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!