Rod and Gabi VS Lasers BONUS

There’s Nothing Cooler than a Laser Show

If you head along to the National Film and Sound Archive at the moment you can see an immersive audiovisual experience (AKA a laser show) called Constellations.

Rod and Gabi had a chat to the creator of the installation Robin Fox who told us that working with lasers is actually kind of dangerous…

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I just marvel at how lucky we are with some
of our institutions here in the nation's capital, and we.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Take it for granted sometimes, oh we do. And I'm
really aware of it.

Speaker 1 (00:12):
Since producer Chelsea joined the show a couple of weeks ago,
coming from Perth.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
She can't believe that all.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
The things that you hear about as Australians are here.
And then the thing that she can't believe the most
is they're free.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
I can't believe that's still. And the National Film and
Sound Archive for me is top three. I just love it.
We're so privileged, such a beautiful.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
Amazing old building with such extraordinary history, and this archive,
the likes of which you will find in very few
countries on planet Earth.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
And so when they will do a rerun.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
Or a replay a classic Ossie film, it's really cool.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
It's really special.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
But I'm particularly fascinated by a show that's on at
the moment.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
It's called Constellations.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
It's been on for the last month or so, we've
only got in fact, we've got less than a month
if we want to see it. And we're very privileged
to have the artist Robin Fox joining us now. Robin
congratulations on having this installation happening at the NFSA.

Speaker 3 (01:15):
Oh, thank you so much. It's such a great honor.
And like you were just saying in your introduction there,
you're pretty spoilt up there in the Capital, I've got
to say, with all of those amazing institutions, the National Gallery,
the National Film and Town Archives, the National Library, it's
just amazing. And like you said, the archive itself, the
National Film and Sound Archives, is just extraordinary. I had

(01:36):
a residency there last year and got a tour of
the collection and just just understanding the absolute just the
breadth and the depth of what they're doing there and
what their mission is and how kind of impossible it
is actually to archive everything, and particularly now, you know,
when creation is happening on platforms like TikTok. I mean,
what do you actually keep? You know, that's an amazing question,

(01:59):
even in an.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
Itself, and it's an extraordinary race against time because historically, yeah,
well that's the thing, and so films hanging by a thread.
But we have this incredible decades long part of the
archive that's on magnetic tape, and history is literally falling
off the tape because there's so much and there's so
many human hours that you can digitize it. It's a

(02:23):
wild scene. But enough of that, there are destinations around
the world that people will travel to other countries to
see these audio visual experiences, and we're very privileged to
have yours here for those who are thinking, oh, I
might like to go and have a look at that
over the next couple of weeks.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
What is the experience life?

Speaker 3 (02:41):
Well, I mean Constellations is one of my favorite works.
It's fun basically, and the whole idea behind it is
that you walk in there and you're completely transported into
another universe, and hopefully what you're left with is this
sort of childlike sense of wonder because basically what I
do in here installation is I take some really beautifully

(03:01):
culminated laser beams which are just magical. You know, even
though they've been around since the nineteen sixties, you can
still turn a laser on in a room and people
will because you just never see light behave like that
in nature. It's so counterintuitive. And it's all very very
very tightly synchronized with the sound, which is very important

(03:23):
to me when.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
You're creating something like that. Does the music come first,
Does the dance come first? Do the lights come first?

Speaker 1 (03:29):
Like?

Speaker 2 (03:29):
How do you do it?

Speaker 3 (03:30):
So?

Speaker 1 (03:30):
I know, like in movies when they compose, they're kind
of watching it and playing at the same time.

Speaker 3 (03:35):
With the audio visual work, I used to make sound
and feed it into laser projectors and then look at
the sound, and then to various safety reasons, I had
to reverse that process. So now I make images and
I listen to those.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
What are the safety concerns that meant that you had
to start with the audio.

Speaker 3 (03:56):
Oh I shouldn't have mentioned that, should I?

Speaker 2 (03:58):
But you absolutely should. I'm very intrigued.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
Yeah, no, no, Well, of course, of course, working with
lasers has you know, it's fought with a little bit
of danger, and you know, all the all the things
that are fund are exciting in life are a little
bit dangerous, I like to think, so there is when
you're working with lasers. You do have to be incredibly
careful about not exposing people's eyeballs to laser beams. Basically,

(04:22):
and when I was working with the sound to light relationship,
I was at the start of this whole journey twenty
five years ago. Really I was using very low powered lasers.
To be honest, I and really know what I was
doing and in any kind of safety sense. And then
you know, things started to progress, and I wanted to
work with higher powered machines, but they needed to learn

(04:44):
about ocular safety and learn about all the ways that
I am not allowed to use lasers.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
I can't remember the moment in the Simpsons, but I
do recall there was a giant magnifying glass and there
was the sun and the laser A sense actually went
through the town and cut everything in half, which was
a problem except for there was twins.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
That were joined to hear, and so the laser goes.

Speaker 1 (05:08):
And so we don't need obviously you've discovered early, we
don't need to repeat of that moment or life imitating
art as it were.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
And so the completely.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
Safe, the well refined and extraordinary experience Constellations. It's open
from ten am until three pm daily in the gallery
at the National Film and Sound Archive in Acting, but
it's only until May fourth. As I said at the start,
though it is our institution, it is the people's institution.
We just happen to live in the capital, so we're

(05:40):
very privileged. It is free go and say do not
miss out on this. As I said before, people will
travel around the world to international destinations. I know Japan
has a number of experiences similar in ways to this
audio visual experience that we have here at the NFSA.

Speaker 2 (05:58):
We need to take advantage of it. We never take
this stuff for granted.

Speaker 1 (06:01):
A privilege to chat with you today, Robin, congratulations and everything,
and we look forward to seeing you back here in
the capital soon.

Speaker 3 (06:07):
Pleasure was all mine. Thank you very much.

Speaker 2 (06:11):
Rotting Jebby for breakfast