SHOW MAY PUT MUSEUM IN ORBIT

by Ralph J. Gleason
San Francisco Chronicle Jan. 1967

“In February, the Museum of Art is going to offer three light shows with music, all of it improvised, featuring the projection of bill Ham and the improvisational music of Fred Marshall and Jerry Granelli. The dates are Feb. 1 and 3 with afternoon shows on the 4 and 5.”

“Working in a mid-town garage, a relatively sound-proof vault-like room with concrete walls and floors, Ham set a huge screen at one end opposite his light booth in which there are three projectors.”

“Ham’s projection utilize the three machines available, enabling him to make each number have a continuity as images and colors fade from one to the other. Basically a series of transparent dishes are used which can dip, spin or rock back and forth with colored liquids swirling, rolling, dripping, oozing across them.

The light projects and magnifys the images formed by the liquids onto the screen in a giant visualization of a Dylan-esque dream world in which the various shapes emerge from clusters of colors, form and reform, fade and come forth all the while accompanied by the improvised music which at times reaches the intensity of a cosmic upheaval.”

“The images are remarkable in their diversification even though circles are the basic control.”

“Produced in an enclosed area, a totally dark room, the projection on the wall at times acquires a real feeling of outer space.”

“The complete environment, which is one of the best parts of the show, really locks one up in a time capsule and removes all impediments of the outside world.. “We’re working in space, ” Bill Ham says, “pulling you and me both in the same time as musicians have been doing.”

“It is an amazing experience and should be impressive at the Museum.”