perceptual mechanics

Beamline

A staged sequence of mirrors, bouncing light and found text together — the piece staged in Beamline.

In Beamline a beam of light travels a staged path between curved mirrors, real reflection geometry bouncing it from one to the next; this text surfaces at each bounce point in turn.

Here it is as one continuous piece, epigraph first.

Open Beamline →

The body is the prism of the dream.

life has to go somewhere

Bounce 1

...every solid-state hum of vacuum tubes warming up the channel of electrons, glowing orange-red on the back of the CD cover.

Bounce 2

HOLY CRAP! Lasers get hot! They need to be cooled! I swear this makes sense! Because I'm always, always, ALWAYS craving cold water! And me thinking about lasers and whatnot as a useful metaphor – jesus, there's a gem in my heart focusing all this light within and through me – oh my god, I'm the lasing medium…and the laser…no, wait, the light pours through me…and my psyche and mind and body are the medium…and the laser light is that which comes out of me. We're grasping our way towards an analogy, but jumping jesus…this could be something…and my third eye is the focusing mechanism – THE MIRROR – the fucking mirror isn't letting anything out

Bounce 3

Circle the lenses over the crystal refractor of your heart.

Bounce 4

I was just thinking, "I need focus," and suddenly I pictured lenses at my feet and at the top of my head (especially at my feet, though), and now things are definitely coming back into focus! How odd! Just saying the word evoked the image which affected the body.

Bounce 5

Here are harps, here are superstrings.

Bounce 6

Pluck at them both, send me vibrating, harmonics echoing at mathematically precise points... my own bow waits to be bent.

Bounce 7

Microscopic lightning tetrahedrons shimmering in air for half a second and then phasing out...

Bounce 8

union of heaven and earth, union of thought and action, union of spark and fusion, the blend, the soul and psyche, the divine fire.

Bounce 9

Seven-colored, prisms, starlight...

Bounce 10

Vibrating at a different frequency. Harmonics, tuning.