The summer of 2011 marks the Silver Anniversary of the most controversial exhibition of holograms ever! Recent Pulsed Stuff and Other Delights opened on August 9th, 1986, when I was so young and dangerous! That summer was my most productive ever, including writing an article for Creative Camera and Darkroom Techniques, building a portable pulsed portrait setup for Holicon to be set up at Northwestern University, where we shot a hologram of Harold Edgerton, aka Papa Flash, the inventor of the photographic electronic flash, plus managing the lab at the annual Lake Forest College Holography Workshop!
The holograms were shot earlier in the year, but I had to make the displays in the midst of all the other deadlines. There were two “cages” made of dowels and 1” by 2”’s for the Human Zoo, and a pretend personal movie booth to simulate the holo-pornograms of the future. The viewer would sit in front of the hologram, and insert their credit card into a slot (actually not a credit card reader but simply a slit to push the card against the button of a darkroom timer which would open the shutter of a laser to show the hologram for about a minute) and then enjoy the view.
There was a major controversy with the article in holosphere, the Advocate of Holographic Science, Technology and Art. I wrote my own shameless self-promotional but slightly self-effacing review of the show, (following in the footsteps of Margaret Benyon’s self-interview in holosphere), but wanted to give the by-line to D. Tulla Lightfoot, a long distance love affair at the time, so she could get the writer’s fee, being a single mom. But she was righteously indignified, and wrote her own somewhat scathing review, using my own quotes, (how clever!) but with a favorable review of my abstractions compared to one of my heroes, Doug Tyler!
So you may click on pdf’s of carbon copies of the original typewritten review, (in 1986 not many people had PC’s!), or the recently redacted version of it, or the article as it appeared in holosphere. Kent Alexander and Scott Lloyd considered the image a minor victory, with the first publications of breasts in the Advocate! (Ian Lancaster had them crop out the naughty bits for publication, but the picture on this site is not cropped!)
This little stunt gave me greater than 15 minutes of fame (or infamy as you deem fit), as in the next issue of holosphere Dennis Gabor’s brother and boss at the time of his invention of holography gave me a good drubbing in the Letters to the Editor! More recently this controversy has given me a couple of paragraphs in Holographic Visions.
So read on if you are > 18 years old and open-minded, as the language and attitude are not to everyone’s liking. But what the heck, joke ‘em if they can’t take a f*ck!
Ed Wesly’s submission to holosphere
Ed Wesly’s submission to holosphere, redacted and illustrated
Article as it appeared in holosphere
Dennis Gabor’s brother and boss's Letter to the Editor of holosphere