Cyber-Dancer
"...we have to be a little more careful so we don't miss the real uncanny coincidences, and drown in a pool of mediocre coincidences that everybody throws at you day and night."
with Brummbaer
Brummbaer was one of the primary computer animators responsible for the mind-bending graphics in the Tristar motion picture Johnny Mnemonic (written by William Gibson, and co-starring my cousin Dina Meyer). He also created a breathtaking opener for SIGGRAPH's 1995 Electronic Theater, and has long been a pioneer in the world of digital animation, where he has achieved legendary status with his unmistakable hallucinogenic style. His fine art and underground magazine Germania brought him fame in Europe during the Sixties, and he orchestrated light shows for such musicians as Frank Zappa and Tangerine Dream. Brummbaer found his most expressive medium when he discovered the computer. Here Brummbaer became a fully ordained wizard.
Described by Timothy Leary as a "cyber-dancer," and "one of the first masters" of digital media, he stylishly blends the mathematical precision achievable on a computer with sensuous organic mind-scapes. His animated alien worlds are composed of Escheresquely organized, interlocking tubular networks, and spinning hyperdimensional polymorphic objects, encoded with cryptic esoteric messages from alternatively-ordered universes. Ever modest with regard to the magic that he spins, Brummbaer says that his philosophy of creativity stems from his notion that an artist is but a humble window washer. His computer screen, he claims, is simply a window that allows him to see through into other worlds, and all he does is polish the screen so that we can see through to the other side. I interviewed him at his studio in Venice, California on December 15, 1992.