The Last Laser Show Laserium
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| Audience/Grade: | College Freshman-Continuing Education |
| Discipline(s): |
Electrical Engineering History of Science and Technology Physics |
| Special Topic(s): | |
| Learning Resource Type: |
Reference - Article/Document |
| Media Type: |
Unknown |
| Author(s): |
Mark Ehrman |
| Description: | Fortune Magazine, Feb. 18, 2002. "The Last Laser Show Laserium, once playing at an observatory near you, has gone the way of the pet rock. Mark Ehrman tracks the history--and future?--of the light fantastic. What a bummer. After 28 years, 45 cities, and more than 20 million blown minds, Laserium--that light and music phantasma that brought suburban stoners flocking to the local planetarium by the vanful--has fired its last beam. Though it was never to flourish the way it did when Earth Shoes walked the land, Laserium hung in there far longer than other '70s fads. "We were the first to do laser entertainment," boasts 62-year-old Ivan Dryer, Laserium's creator. A former astronomy major turned filmmaker, Dryer recalls how "I was bored with the blobby light shows they had in the '60s." In 1970 a Caltech professor, Elsa Garmire, introduced him to the laser, whose uncluttered light waves produce colors of previously unimaginable purity. Futzing off-hours with university equipment, Garmire created the shapes and patterns that would come to be known as laser art. When Dryer tried filming the effects to the accompaniment of music, the hues lost their visceral wallop. And that's when the idea of a live show hit him (and Laserium was almost always performed live, with a laserist creating retina-searing images for the audience in real time). " |
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| Related Resources | |
| Keywords: | Elsa Garmire laser light shows Laserium |
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| Use of Resource: |
Concluding paragraph: "So even though the nation's planetariums will confine themselves to exhibiting the known cosmos, laser light shows will live long and prosper--just elsewhere. This spring or summer, Dryer himself is launching a venture in Hollywood called the Laserium Cyberdome, an "interactive show experience," which he hopes to roll out nationwide. "Because of the Light Dancer sensors in the floor, a person who's moving around the Cyberdome will affect the image that is projected overhead, and also the sound or music," he promises. "Essentially the audience will no longer be the audience; they will be co-creating the experience." Sounds far out, but it remains to be seen whether all that 21st-century gadgetry can recapture the naive wonder first elicited by Laserium I's waltzing circles." |
| Difficulty: |
Easy |
| Interactivity Level: |
Very low |
| Version Info | |
| Publication Date: | February 2002 |
| Platform/Format: |
WWW |
| Cost: |
Free |
| Download URL: | http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2002/02/18 |
| Metadata: |
IEEE LOM Record |
| Collection: |
NEEDS
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