Title: Patricia Marx Interviews: Thomas Wilfred
Last Updated: 2016-06-16 7:17PM
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But Rachel Mark's interview each week at this time your station bring to
an interview with a leading figure in the arts politics or the sirens. I'm here now
to introduce this afternoon's guest. Patrice
earmarks the art of light or Lumia as it's sometimes called uses
life itself as its medium and combines color form in motion
to create an independent
art form. I'm delighted to have as my guest today.
Thomas Wilfred the great pioneer of luminal art.
Mr Wilfred was born in Denmark in eight hundred eighty nine and came to the United States in
one thousand nine hundred sixteen to devote his full time to the art of
Lumia in one thousand nine hundred he developed a crab a lox and
organ like. Instrument controlled by sliding keys which project colors onto a
screen in one thousand nine hundred eighty eight Mr Wilfred developed the
first self-contained automatic Clavell
X. Mr Wilfred. Werman How did you first become interested in the art of light.
It's a hard question to answer because I've always been interested.
My first impression in this world came to
me when I was two years old I remember nothing before that
my mother had just died and one day the nurse took me into
my father's office I could have been but a couple of
months older than two years in the sun was shining in there
and father to cheer me up took a Crystal
Egg mounted on a letter press and moved it in
the sun being.
And the ceiling suddenly became covered with little traveling dots of spectral
color and follows that I was green with the light and every time I came into the
office he had to do that for me again and I was so disappointed whenever there was
no sun and therefore no. Spectrums but
could be seen dancing. Know from then on.
The best thing I can say is that I've never been able to leave it alone.
It has demanded my time and my
imagination and my vision. Ever
since so I
left Denmark when I was nineteen he began to study
art both music and sculpture and painting
because I wanted to get the various approaches
to any moving art. But light was
back of it
all the driving spring. To I found
some teaches both in Germany and France and in England.
Who consented to teach me what I wanted to know when nothing else.
What was that what kind of things did you want to
know just what concerns you late and
why certain think
this were more successful in portraying light and effect the light
than others. And then finally I came to
the conclusion that light itself is necessary.
You cannot think light convincingly because
light moves. It's part of the
universal flux and therefore motion is a
necessary to mention and factor and any visual
art involving late so I built several
instruments in one
thousand five when I was sixteen I cut some
holes no cigar box put a small electric bulb
inside got some colored glass from the place
year and. To project patterns in the ceiling.
And nobody thought much of it was just
a young man's fancy to get tired of that.
But when I came to Paris and started studying art there
I got packing boxes and I got more lamps and so on. And I
kept building. And one night I invited
my
teacher painting up to my little room and I said I want to
show you something I've been working on and I showed him.
Some crew. Developments of foam color and motion on the
screen and I was waiting for his approval.
But he folded his arms over his chest and said Look my boy.
This will lead you nowhere. With this on your mind you'll never learn to paint.
Well he was right about that one thing but I could not leave it alone.
And I kept it up but I also had to make a living I found out I
had a goodbye tone of voice and I liked over songs.
So
I found a new twelve string lute and I began to practice
in saying I knew she would old songs to the
loot and that took.
And I made money on it so my pussy would be go
out through the window and sing til you have funds
enough then spend the summer experimenting to you go
broke then go back and sing some more. And
that lasted in reality until
the war program just before the war nine hundred fourteen.
I was given the right to command any. England to appear in
court and of course after that the engagements multiplied because what's
good enough for the royal
family is good enough for everybody but then came the war and that was
the end of that I came over here to the United States in one thousand nine hundred
sixteen and why did you come to the state because I wanted to
try and see if my work.
WOULD FIND A BETTER. So I hear a more open mind.
But I continued the old the routine of going out on
song recitals in the wind and experiment in the summer
until nineteen nineteen.
Then I suddenly told my manager no more song recitals
and he was heartbroken. Heavens
man you're making big money. I said Yes but everybody can
sing but very few people have the patience to deal with this work.
So from nineteen nineteen to nineteen twenty two.
I had a laboratory in Huntington Long
Island out in the birch woods and I built their
first clearly looks which I call it an instrument
which from which you could play light by key that is you
had some command or form and motion and color.
And then in January nineteen twenty two I
played the first public performances in New
York in the concerts that you gave in the United
States and Canada and eventually Europe in the
twenty's was the form of of this club Aleck's. Was
it substantially different from what one can see now say in
the Museum of Modern Art return to school years. Can
you
describe the industry. Conversations were much
shorter and much more rigid in structure. Some of them you could
almost compare to the few in that I
was very rated I was very young and still very rigid in my outlook
on conversation.
With this mean that the patterns were clearly defined. Yes just really hard well not just fine
not too hard no I've never believed in too hard.
But they were rather uniform and movement and in
color changes and so on because I played there from notation by moving the keys on
the keyboard with a regular performance in
silence and I had
a different instrument several new instruments and one I took to your the nine hundred
twenty five was quite a nice looking
aluminum instrument with five
manuals that could be set up in a few hours. I played Paris.
I played the old Queen's Hall in
London and when I came to my native country Denmark the
government invited me to play in the Royal Opera House in the middle of the summer it was opened up.
For just one performance and all the artists and writers were
invited by government invitation to come and see the place
was full and it has never happened before or since that they've opened
that the opera house in the summer for any one
single individual so I was very proud of
that do you find it performing your pieces on the club
likes the
performance itself something that you feel adds to the fact in contrast
to larger and more contemporary pieces you've done recently who wears
the patterns are determined controlled
by
Yannick devices because at the keyboard. You have the same freedom.
That a pianist has interpreted another composer's work
if some day you feel a little at a
rapid tempo you can do it if someday you feel you want to emphasize
a certain Carlo others you can do it whereas once you have recorded the
conversation that is it it's like a phonograph record no
change possible. Can you actually improvise.
So yes. Improvisation is fun and
some conversations have come out of moments in improvisation
which I've suddenly seen a combination. I didn't know could be done.
Do you do this anymore you so you have an instrument in which
you perform No we know because we have no more room
when the audience who like closed in Grand Central
Palace. And the war came on we had to warehouse all our
things and we never were able to build up a membership again so a
lot remains warehoused and no I have
specialized in these smaller compositions which I can do then
which can be placed in museums and private
homes rather than try to book their sidles with a large
instrument where we sighed as I no longer want it because radio and
television and these big combines have taken everything
over to everything in one hundred thirty. You founded the Art
Institute of light and evidently there was
a theater in studio under the auspices of the Institute in New York City
from one thousand nine hundred three to one nine hundred forty three Yes Can you describe at all what
kind of work went on both at the institute and at the theater at the
zoo I realized that in terms of just one man
their work would never mean very much. That other artists
should be able to express themselves through it.
And so I laid the foundation for the Art Institute of light a
nonprofit organization. And we got some kind of a membership
build
up. And in Grand Central Palace. We
had rigged up a Lumia theater holding about eighty
people with a large screen and a very large instrument
of some thirty two project this and it keyboard room behind
the audience from which the player could looking over the audience and
see the screen.
They were sidles would be in two groups of say four compositions
each and I would give a little introduction before
each and that became very
popular their art schools in the colleges and the students and on Friday
nights it was for the general public. And we
had a great many people there who enjoyed the
work but then of course in
nineteen forty two the war hit
us and their army moved into the building for too good
for recruiting send our
staff was called into the various armed forces and I was taken into
government
service as a radio man radio editor
an announcer new Deniz language.
Sending shortwave News in the Danish
language across the seas re times a day for two
years now when finally all that was over in one thousand nine hundred five.
It was no time to start
anything and all the big instruments were
warehoused no room to set them up. No room to arrange a theater. Nolo.
Vailable to build anything at all but a
small very small studio. So I turn
myself to with a smaller compositions which I could do it my
leisure and which when
finished represented one single conversation that
was sold as such as you would sell a painting or piece of
sculpture and that has gone on from then on
but the idea of getting students to come
in did not work because we had no
money to support them while they were
there with the students before performing
Lumia both were but actually
motivating mostly they would be they would be paying this who wanted to work in
the medium. And those days appearing just didn't like it very
much so several of them dropped out and I asked some
of them and they
said we talked to some of our friends and they said.
If you touch that you ostracized by the rest of us. So really that stuff alone they
were for afraid of it very much afraid of what the Lumia lot of light would do to a painting.
And no of course the realize there's nothing to be afraid of because it's in an
entirely different art form.
It's a nod to be performed in a concert
hall and it will be that way when
in later years. It builds up.
I wonder if if you would describe what Louis. Is what is the art
of like.
If you take their art of sound music.
You have mellowed e Harmony and rhythm. You may
say there's three dimensions that right dangerous to one
another but I. Often has musicians.
What is the
basic factor in
music the very basic thing you build
on and return to
what I said Not really I said no it is
not it is silence because
no conductor raises his but until he has
produced silence in the concert
hall and take an elaborate precautions to MONTAGNE it solidly under
the structure of sound his building when he returns to
silence for a fragment of a second before
they applause breaks in so silence
is the basic
factor in music. No in Lumia the basic
factor is darkness and complete darkness. You must begin with
that not only that but you must begin
imagining
endless dark space in front of you so that you are limited to build
the phone miles out. And move it and make it
come toward you and make it in luggage and make it passing over you as slow you were
sitting in some fat test expense.
Ship with a huge window on the nose and
by means of manipulating the controls which in this case is a keyboard.
You could either
travel through this fantastic world you were building out there or form color and
motion or you could stay at one juncture
between space and time and let all the things pass you
in review.
No that is evasion. No you must realize it.
You must materialize it so what other people can see. And the
big window in the nose of the spaceship becomes a white screen a two
dimensional white screen. The moving operatic
as the propelling device becomes a number of
powerful project is and the control panel
becomes a loom the keyboard a cleverly looks keyboard.
And then you must perform the composition in such a
way that your spectators. Will again feel they're
looking
out through a window into infinite
space that is just this physical link in between that you
must know how to pass through in order to express it to someone besides yourself.
There is a basics of Lumia Mr
Wizard what can the artist express through Lumia more effectively then
to older art forms.
Basically the majestic their own earthly.
That which is not connected with the activities and
movements of the human being in other words
space visions. But that is not the
only direction that is the main
direction the composer Lumia
may just as easily take his audience in Israel a dance
hall or us were crowded city
street or through beautiful suspension
bridge that he can enjoy the music of the interlacing Stieg a good
US or indeed a primeval
forest all those things are possible.
Not only that but you can in this art form
express abstract human enough from the. It
does not involve the whom being whatever.
And I have worked some with it in the past and it
promises
well how how do you actually do that when you can you can you verbalize
it all.
Yes you do it by sudden unexpected movements of
smaller
forms can you are you track to two representational forms.
Could you use human forms
or I don't want to do that personally it would probably be
done extensively because something about the human form
that especially the female
form that has fascinated and will always fascinated.
In painting and motion pictures that is fine and
this art form it becomes more difficult it becomes one burnish.
That at least I will not there are going to vote there will be
many who will come and do their best or their worst whatever you
feel in representing the human form.
I like to quote something from one of your writings and ask you to speak about a little
more you said. Shall we continue to dramatize our floundering in the muddy
waters of rank materialism or dedicate the new art as a vehicle for a new
message and first of all express what light has
always symbolized a longing for a greater reality a cosmic
consciousness a balance between the human entity and the great common denominator
the universal rhythmic flow.
I wonder if you tell us a little more what you what you mean by this. And what you're trying
to express through
Lumia I mean merely this think I've said once before
that they aren't from this peculiar yet that that to their
An earthly
they and.
Therefore the composition pattern will naturally be different.
There will be less obvious climax and there would be much
more even flow the climax will be implied
instead of
actually shown and
executed and some of those
compositions will be closed conversations in that they will have no beginning
and no end because those are the phenomena means
in nature. There's no beginning and no end you come out to look at
the starless night that hasn't just been turned on because you open the door.
It's then you can look at it as long as you like you go in and
it continuous therefore I like to build closed
compositions where as a beginning with the end there isn't any close conversation the
circular it repeats rule with variation.
What is the source of most of your the inspiration is it largely nature you speak.
Yeah a little about me.
Yes nature and then certain visions that
I've had. I've always striving for peace of
mind silence in which to be able
to really think really contemplate. And
those things come when you are alone and you were
silent and you
uninterrupted. But no other
time and
therefore those who really want to express things in this must seek
that and must know how to benefit by
it and he said billet is
their vision is that behind them something comes and
is clearly expressed and clearly enjoyed by the audience.
If it's just a display of changing color. It means nothing to
anybody does this kind of vision or piece of
mind come to most easily in the
country. I like to be I've
always disliked living in the city. It was necessary for a
great many years but no
as soon as I could I got away from it to a little house.
Well in the wireless a field isn't Littlewoods and so
on where at night you have absolute
silence and I can sit
from the time the rest of the household goes to sleep in until
I feel I want to go to bed. And nothing
disturbed nothing at all.
Do you actually in this in shapes that.
You then embody in such as a composer might hear a
melody or shape or
color for yes I do. And then of course I have to
translate that and say to myself I would like to create that shape and make it.
Mozart's And so now can I do
it technically
I do many other limitations. Sometimes for
you for lots of limitations. They are the art form is in its infancy.
What we shall see if humanity stays alive long enough.
Will not be indicated by anything done today. Because the Johansson save
us young buck a roomier has not yet been born or at least he
may be in grade school now and when the first reader genius expresses
himself through this art
form with the instruments at his fingertips that
he can express things through then we may see something entirely different.
But their art form is here to stay. We might as well get acquainted with it.
Because it's one of the great arts.
You remember what the Cheney said in his book about it. Well that was
prophetic because that was said in nineteen twenty
three Sheldon Cheney there right on art an art critic.
Came to most through you know Huntington and after having seen the recital as.
He wrote in his book a Prima modern art.
Here is a beginning or at least the first serious achievement
of an
art as primitive as complex as capable
of varied emotional beauty is music and its medium is
light that light which was it early Scott of human
kind which to this day to this size all that is spiritual
joy bringing and
radiant perhaps then this is the beginning of the
greatest the most spiritual and radiant
art or. Mr Wilfrid I want to thank you for this interview.
My guest has been the great pioneer of the art of light. Thomas Wilfrid.
Thank you and goodbye for
now you have been listening to Patricia Marx interview. Joanna's again
next week when once again we bring you a question mark
interview.