Electric Light Brigade

Hi my name is Darren. I live in Victoria, Australia and my collaborative visual art practice is called Electric Light Brigade.

The name Electric Light Brigade came about after asking friends online for some suggestions. I wanted something with “electric” in it and when a friend Paul Wheller suggested “light brigade” the name stuck straight away.

I first got into light shows by using slide projections at 60s themed mod/psych/garage nightclub events in Brisbane in the 90s.

I was also a freelance graphic designer so I did quite a bit of printed artwork as well. And I ended up getting back into doing projections for 60’s nightclubs 7 years after studying a bachelor of interior design/architecture at RMIT University in Melbourne.

My university thesis proposed that artists/designers in concert with a material can make visible the invisible forces that allow materials to show their truest form. It just took me some time to find the right material/medium but eventually I saw the light (pun intended).

So in the beginning when I started my early work mostly consisted of layering 35mm slide projections to frame the more intimate spaces of a nightclub. Creating small moments presented as scenes from an imagined vintage movie that the spectator could inhabit.

I have always felt that the audience should be considered part of the work. Behaving as an organic moving canvas they make the projected scene dynamic. And in the performance of doing so bending their perception of space through time perceived or imagined.

After receiving some positive feedback I branched out into live stage projections for friend’s bands by layering slide projections in a pre determined sequence and manually switching multiple projections on and off as I did not have any kind of dissolve unit to do it for me.

After some more favourable feedback I decided to purchase a few Optikinetics Solar 250s that were occasionally popping up for sale online in my area. Up until that point all of my slide equipment had been sourced from charity shops.

A lot my inspiration had come from films and photographs until I was fortunate enough to be accepted by The Psychedelic Light Show Appreciation Society Facebook group which introduced me to a wealth of technical information.

It was there that I became more familiar with the west coast liquid light show style and multi image light shows of the US in the 60s like Jerry Abrams Headlights and Single Wing Turquoise Bird I also became familiar with the work of Mark Boyle and Peter Wynne-Wilson from the UK.

It wasn’t long until I had purchased two 800w Liesgang overhead projectors and fitted dimmer switches to allow me to layer their output and fade smoothly between them.

I also started making motorised colour wheels to be positioned in front of the projectors. And because my 300w slide projectors were a bit lacking in the lumen department I started collecting vintage 500w & 1000w Aldis slide projectors to take their place. As the events I was getting booked for became larger and more complex with more and more projectors I began approaching people to assist and learn how to prepare and perform liquid light shows.

Over time though I have moved back to performing solo shows with just one other talented multi medium artist Scott Mclatchie. Nowadays we still use the overhead projectors with liquids from time to time but we’ve added a 5500 Lumen video projector, various video camcorders filming the liquid light show plates and a video feedback loop via crt monitors.

This live video signal can then be mixed with pre recorded video content from other video sources like VCRs and DVD players and then mixed together and manipulated by vintage video effects mixers like the Edirol V4,V8, or a Panasonic MX-50.

Into the future I wish to continue performing live because I love the instantaneous creative feedback loop that goes from musician to visual artist (myself) to audience then back to musician. However I also hope to record short films of experiments I’ve been working on, collaborative music videos, more amazing festivals and large scale art commissions.

Bands I’ve worked with include:

The Black Heart Death Cult, Brown Spirits, The Mystery Lights, LA Witch, New Candys, Earth Tongue, The Paul Kidney Experience, Flyying Colours, Holy Serpent, Spawn, Fuzz Meadows, Flavour Crystals, The Morning After Girls, Sunfruits, The Dandelion, Joe Ghatt, The Baudelaires, B!and, User, Seedy Jesus, Jack Harlon And The Dead Crows, Pseudo Mind Hive, Borrachero, Shroud, Terrible Signal, Wo Fat, Pieces Of Molly, Subterranean Disposition, Turtle Skull, Motherslug, Honeybone, Full Tone Generator, Kitchen Witch, Numidia, Electric Mud, Ivy Streep, The Hum Drums, Neptune Power Generation, Psychbabel, Turtle Skull, The Demon Parade, Psychedelic Porn Crumpets, Buried Feather, The Bleeding Flares, The Dunes, Lazertitz, Baptism Of Uzi, Opal Ghost, The Pink Tiles, Penny Ikinger, Eastward, Majak Door, Phlo, Thee Wild Oscars, Les Minijupes, and many more.

Darren - July 2020