The Lo-Tech Visual Revolution

for The Daily Telegraph


A mini revolution is happening in clubland visuals right now and for once the tools of the trade
aren't based around high-end computer graphics or expensive lighting but around equipment you've
probably got knocking about in your loft; Super 8 projectors, slide carousels and loops of film.
Proving that with a bit of imagination old obsolete technology can often outshine even the most 
up to date light shows visual collectives such as The Light Surgeons, Lazy Eye and Icon have been
transforming clubs the country over from bare, barren and boring areas into spaces drowned in 
widescreen Technicolor, movement and light. And all they're armed with is gear that you could 
probably pick up for under a tenner at your nearest car boot sale. This is the lo-tech visual 
revolution. 

"One of the best things about a super 8 projector is that you only have to have a pair of eyes to 
download the information," says The Light Surgeon's Chris Allen. "There's some mediums out there 
that don't require lots of money, or lots of knowledge on how to operate them and this is one of 
them" 

"It costs nothing," explains Spencer Bewley, who as one half of Lazy Eye has provided visuals for 
everything from clubs such as the Heavenly Social to tours for the likes of Death In Vegas and 
Beth Orton. "You can pick up a projector from a car boot sale for about a tenner. We get films 
from everywhere; junk shops, jumbles, friends. It depends how lucky you are really. But if we can 
start from scratch then anyone can." 

Chris Allen agrees: "Our roots really lie in bargains and rooting out old technology and trying 
to do something new with it, skip raids and jumble sales, car boots. Picking up on obsolete stuff 
and really scavenging. For me that's what the whole cyberpunk thing is really saying. My brother's 
always been into his hip hop, into breaks and samples, and that whole scene influenced me to take 
a similar look at visuals in clubs. I originally did it just to show my graphic design and to show 
the record covers that were being played. I wanted to show the whole cultural package that came 
with the music." 

Rising to prominence during their spell providing the visuals for Ninja Tune's now legendary Stealth 
nights at The Blue Note in London The Light Surgeons have built up an impressive CV including 
everything from tours for bands like The Propellerheads, Bentley Rhythm Ace and Sneaker Pimps to 
corporate launches for Sony. They work by transforming their environment and surroundings into 
screens and backdrops onto which the three strong unit project a barrage of films, slides and images 
each simultaneously running off any one of up to twenty projectors. A typical night might see whole 
super 8 films such as Star Wars and THX 1138 overlapped by slides of Japanese instruction manuals 
while 16mm loops of electronic interference and kung fu flicks repeat on top. 

"We take parts from films that we think suit the music or that we think will get a reaction from the 
audience," explains The Light Surgeon's Andy Flywell, "It might cause a smile, it might cause someone 
to throw up, but anything that gets a reaction is good enough by me." 

The attraction of using film over high tech computer graphics or video projection isn't purely 
financial though. Many have rejected the digital approach not only as being too expensive but also 
as being too cold and sterile, preferring the warmth and character that comes with old analogue 
equipment. 

"It's the quality of image you get from film that you don't get from an LCD projector," explains Chris. 
"We don't have anything against new technology; we use Macs and we play around with things visually on 
new equipment, it's just that much more satisfying to see the finished result projected through celluloid. 
It's got that magic. And it's ephemeral as well - it decays, it gets scratched. All of our machines have 
got things that go wrong with them and that adds to their individuality. They've got a soul that new 
technology doesn't seem to have." 

"I just think that it's better to offer an itchy-scratchy dirty funky type of experience," says Spencer 
"It's like music. When it gets too polished it loses a lot of the raw energy and character that was 
originally there; it becomes homogenised. It's a bit more human, a bit more soulful if it's raw, if it's 
got scratches and fingerprints on it. Well that's our excuse anyway." 

A couple of companies have woken up to the commercial possibilities of the scene as well; despite the 
easily definable and regular audiences that clubbing provides advertisers have, until recently, been 
slow to get involved. 

"Somebody's realised that there's a lot of people going to clubs and there's a space on the walls 
where you can project images on that's really quite a cheap and effective way of advertising," says 
Izzy Lazy Eye "We've been given money by Rizla to do promotional loops for them. I think we'd be 
generally quite cautious of the area but really there's no product that we'd rather be more associated 
with." 

Another advantage of the medium has also been the quality of the visuals shown. You'd have to be on 
some serious 'entertainment enhancers' not to have become bored of the seemingly endless deluge of 
cliched computer generated graphics that dominated clubland over the past decade or so - there's 
only so many times you can be impressed by a spinning 3D rendered cube surrounded by fractals. By 
returning to film and super 8 many visual artists discovered that there was a huge untapped wealth 
of material ready to be plundered and started approaching the area in much the same way that samplers 
allowed hip-hop producers to revisit their old record collections searching for breakbeats, basslines 
and other sounds to help create new pieces. 

"For me hip-hop culture has been a big influence," says Chris, "The way we approach our material is 
often just like the way a hip-hop producer would take an old R+B tune apart and take the best part or 
a loop from it. It's putting loops together to create new meaning. You're picking a part of a cultural 
object and repeating it until it becomes a groove and then you start layering other things on it, 
building it up. It's just like a band really. Like any band would start up, jamming, doing different 
things, experimenting, but with us we don't make sound, we just throw light around." 

"We use about four 16mm projectors and they'll be trained onto the same point" explains Spencer from 
Lazy Eye "We'll then mix loops from each projector almost as if it were two turntables. You'll be 
switching from one loop to the other in time with the music so that it is very organic, funky and 
live. People keep saying to us 'Oh why don't you put the whole show on video and then you won't have 
all this hassle of taking all these heavy projectors everywhere' but you haven't got the quality or 
the control." 

"It's like telling a DJ to bring along a DAT tape and just play his set" adds Izzy, "but the thing is 
if you're actually there, operating the projectors, turning them on and off, on and off in time to the 
music it's still got that live edge you'd lose with a video projector." 

But with both collectives keen to incorporate other areas as well it looks as if these car boot bargains 
are merely a starting block to entering many different areas. The Light Surgeons have already produced 
a video for Cornershop and express interest into entering areas like title sequence design and subversive 
public projections. They'll also be exhibiting at the ICA later this year alongside contemporaries 
Lazy Eye, Vegetable Vision and Tomato. And all of this thanks to some technology that most had left 
to rot years ago. 

"In the future, when the new technology becomes the old technology, that's when we can pick it up 
cheap," says The Light Surgeons' Andy F "When it's available to other people they can start using 
it for something different and innovating in the same way we've done with film, slide and super 8. 
It's constantly changing. There's a cycle and it keeps filtering down." 

"It's liberation and it empowers people. As a technology becomes more accessible it starts to become 
liberated from what it was originally made for," adds Andy Flywell, "All the technology derives from 
some sort of sordid warfare or government source but when it eventually bubbles down to the street 
level, when you can buy these things second hand and actually get involved in them, take them apart 
and stick them back together, that's when the really interesting stuff happens." 

Contact Lazy Eye (0171 251 5950), Light Surgeons (0171 613 5756), Icon (0956 416930)