{"id":112,"date":"2019-10-09T15:21:01","date_gmt":"2019-10-09T20:21:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/exhibitions.lib.udel.edu\/beat-visions-and-the-counterculture\/?page_id=112"},"modified":"2019-11-04T14:46:39","modified_gmt":"2019-11-04T19:46:39","slug":"burroughs-gysin","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/exhibitions.lib.udel.edu\/beat-visions-and-the-counterculture\/home\/burroughs-gysin\/","title":{"rendered":"Burroughs and Brion Gysin"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

[UD_EXHIBITION_ITEM] <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Charles Gatewood (American, 1942 \u2013 2016)
William Burroughs, London, 1972<\/strong>
gelatin silver print<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photographer Charles Gatewood accompanied Rolling Stone<\/em> reporter Robert Palmer to interview William S. Burroughs in London in 1972. Gatewood later recalled his first impression: \u201cThe iconic Beat writer greeted us warmly, and showed us into his modest two-room flat on Duke Street, St. James, near Piccadilly. He was a tall, thin man with a sad face \u2014 long nose, thin lips, steely blue-gray eyes. Impeccably dressed in slacks, turtleneck, and tweed sport coat, Burroughs looked a hundred percent straight. Maybe that\u2019s why the world\u2019s most notorious literary outlaw was called El Hombre Invisible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[UD_EXHIBITION_ITEM] <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Charles Gatewood (American, 1942 \u2013 2016)
Brion Gysin, William Burroughs and the Dream Machine, London, 1972<\/strong>
printed 2011, gelatin silver print<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Dream Machine was invented by Brion Gysin and Ian Sommerville, a British mathematician and \u201csystems engineer\u201d who became William S. Burroughs\u2019s companion. It used a rotating perforated cylinder with a light inside it to produce flickering patterns that acted on the brain, inducing trance-like states. Meant to be \u201cviewed\u201d with the eyes closed, it mimics the frequency of the brain\u2019s alpha waves and may induce a hypnagogic state\u2014 the state between waking and sleeping when the brain becomes open to hallucinations and sensory effects such as moving patterns. Gysin had hoped that the Dream Machine, mass-produced, would replace drugs, on the one hand, and television on the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[UD_EXHIBITION_ITEM] <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[UD_EXHIBITION_ITEM] <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brion Gysin (American, 1916 \u2013 1986):
Electronic Revolution, 1971
Electronic Revolution, 1971<\/strong>
screen prints on paper
Blackmoor Head Press, Cambridge, England<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These artworks belong to Brion Gysin\u2019s extensive series of \u201cRoller Grid\u201d prints, in which a paint roller was modified to lay down a grid pattern. Repetitive yet always featuring distinct markings, the roller grids represented an idiosyncratic system, an irrational order, combining repetition and chance. The principle of the \u201crolling grid\u201d (endless repetition with endless variation) can be seen at work in many of Gysin\u2019s and William S. Burroughs\u2019s projects, including the Dream Machine and Burroughs\u2019s three-column scrapbook collages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[UD_EXHIBITION_ITEM] <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brion Gysin (American, 1916 \u2013 1986)
L\u2019Ile St. Louis, Paris, 1974<\/strong>
screen print with collaged photographs on paper<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[UD_EXHIBITION_ITEM] <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Le Colloque de Tanger, William Burroughs \u2013 Brion Gysin, 1977<\/strong>
lithograph on paper<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This poster announced a symposium organized in the late 1970s by art historian G\u00e9rard-Georges Lemaire to celebrate the work of William S. Burroughs and Brion Gysin, who reunited for the event. It featured performances, films, and a rock concert. The illustration by Fran\u00e7ois Lagarde is a photo-collage of Burroughs\u2019s and Gysin\u2019s heads superimposed on the statues of the two Protestant reformers, John Calvin and Th\u00e9odore B\u00e8ze.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[UD_EXHIBITION_ITEM]  Charles Gatewood (American, 1942 \u2013 2016)William Burroughs, London, 1972gelatin silver print Photographer Charles Gatewood accompanied Rolling Stone reporter Robert Palmer to interview William S. Burroughs in London in 1972. Gatewood later recalled his first impression: \u201cThe iconic Beat writer greeted us warmly, and showed us into his modest two-room flat on Duke Street, St. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":47,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-exhibition.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-112","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhibitions.lib.udel.edu\/beat-visions-and-the-counterculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/112"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhibitions.lib.udel.edu\/beat-visions-and-the-counterculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhibitions.lib.udel.edu\/beat-visions-and-the-counterculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhibitions.lib.udel.edu\/beat-visions-and-the-counterculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhibitions.lib.udel.edu\/beat-visions-and-the-counterculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/exhibitions.lib.udel.edu\/beat-visions-and-the-counterculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1136,"href":"https:\/\/exhibitions.lib.udel.edu\/beat-visions-and-the-counterculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/112\/revisions\/1136"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhibitions.lib.udel.edu\/beat-visions-and-the-counterculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/47"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhibitions.lib.udel.edu\/beat-visions-and-the-counterculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}