| "Can a documentary change your life? In my case it did. As the dreamachine is on the interface between science and the arts, it drew me out of the determined world of knowledge (through consciousness) into the dynamic world of experience (preceding any form of consciousness), a transition from a sometimes rather small horizon towards the genuine borders of being; not only the Beats, but also Genesis-P or Iggy have been and still are an inspiration this way to open up the metaphorical “reduction valve of the mind”1." – Bastiaan C. ter Meulen, neurologist, University Medical Centre, Rotterdam, The Netherlands *** "Nik Sheehan's FLicKeR tells the true, secret history of Brion Gysin's Dream-Machine: a pioneering psychedelic spiritual artwork that baffled and fascinated the best minds of the 1960s, many of whom appear in this movie, and whose day may finally have come today. Sheehan's great success here is to focus not only on the curious history of the Dream-Machine, but to explore its effects on people today as a living, pulsating piece of machine magic." – Marcus Boon, M.A., Ph.D, author The Road of Excess: A History of Writers on Drugs, (Harvard University Press, 2002), editor America! A Prophecy: The Sparrow Reader (Soft Skull, 2006), and Subduing Demons in America: The Selected Poems of John Giorno (Soft Skull, forthcoming) *** “In FLicKeR, Nik Sheehan exposes the scientific discovery that flashing light at specific intervals can induce an altered state of consciousness, and tells the story of one man’s attempt to subvert the forces of control by placing a Dream Machine in every suburban living room. Either subject alone would have made for a radical film. Together they represent a threat to the established order.” – John Geiger, author of Chapel of Extreme Experience: A Short History of Stroboscopic Light and the Dream Machine (Soft Skull Press, 2003) and Nothing Is True Everything Is Permitted: The Life of Brion Gysin (Disinformation, 2005) |