ROGER FOLEY-FOGG a.k.a. ELLIS D. FOGG

Image above and thumbnail: Stills from 1960s Psychedelic Liquid Lightshow a.k.a. Wetshow

1960s Psychedelic Liquid Lightshow a.k.a. Wetshow

Single-Channel video of a Liquid Lightshow. (looped)

‘Funky Fogg’, Sound by Willem Roorda

Liquid Lightshows emerged in the early 60s to enhance contemporary music events and theatrical avant-garde performances.

Liquid Lightshows quickly became an important tool in the repertoire of early 60s Lightshow Artists . Easy access to overhead projectors in schools and universities, plus the discovery of effects created by hand-manipulation of curved clock glasses with different dyes quickly became universal among Rock ‘n’ Roll and Counter Cultural music which, for the first time, knitted the young people of the world together as one. FOGG quickly gathered a small group of artists utilising these techniques under the name ELLIS D. FOGG, and quickly became an essential part of any alternative counter-culture scene. Roger Foley FOGG, together with Eddie van der Madden and the UBU group, became masters of this genre. Experimenting further they discovered they could make films of Liquids Working to different beats and that combining those film clips with other analogue techniques worked in a very successful way… Recently many young artists have begun experimenting with Liquids once again, and we have joined together with several artists to produce Liquid Shows for music events. - Roger Foley-FOGG

Psychedelic Mandala In A Square

Single-channel video of Lumino-Kinetic Sculpture 58 secs (looped) 1966 - 2010

This is a movie, an Actuality Film of Lumino-Kinetic Sculpture, a work I started making in 1966 when I was known as Ellis D. FOGG, and was responsible for many Lightshows in Australia and Asia. In those days, lightbulbs didn’t last long and the movement was hand-controlled. In 1971 I exhibited an early version of this work with Vivienne Binns at Watters Gallery, Sydney, and after that success, I was invited to construct a Psychedelic Environment - now called an installation - in a small room in the Yellow House artists’ commune in Sydney, founded and run by Martin Sharp and Albie Thoms. I called it The Capsule Room. After the invention of LEDs, in particular, the blue LED, I made many more versions of this work. It was first shown at Hazelhurst Regional Gallery, Sydney in 2010, in ‘Lumino Kinetics’, opened by Martin Sharp. The LEDs and electronics are now very stable, so this work is often shown as an example of 60s Lumino-Kinetic Light-Art, and its beginnings in Australia as part of the Counter Culture. On my trips to India I discovered that Indian Master Artists (such as S H Raza) paint Mandalas. The Artists’ versions are never precisely symmetrical, random chance events, under controlled chaos, create a sense of ecstasy and spiritual awareness. The importance and spirit lies within the flaw.

ROGER FOLEY-FOGG a.k.a. ELLIS D. FOGG, began producing Psychedelic Lightshows utilising Light Sculpture and Lumino-Kinetic work in the 1960s. He is known for his work as a pioneering producer of large and small theatrical events featuring lumino kinetics - light sculpture - and lightshows. FOGG won “Best Float” at the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras (1989), an Entech Award for Architectural Theming for his work with modern special effects for Segaworld (1997), and in 2014, he began using interactive technologies for the Darling Harbour Christmas Tree of Light. His Light Sculptures are often used as light sources for special events and art environments, as well as being artworks in themselves.

‘FOGG has created spectacular lightshows for many entities, including; large corporations such as Hoyts, Christian Dior, Mirage, Ford, Australian Wool; for public figures such as Elton John, Paul Keating, Christopher Skase, Maggie Tabberer, Linda Jackson and Jenny Kee; Musicians such as Johnny O’Keefe, Daddy Cool, Tully and Tiny Tim; groups such as UBU films, Gija People of the Kimberley Western Australia, Sydney & Melbourne Symphony Orchestras, and a Children’s Home in Noida, Delhi. While in the art world, FOGG has exhibited in a Sydney Biennale, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, The Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney, and was part of highly influential art collective The Yellow House. Common to all his works is the medium of light, and the belief that light can act as a conduit for an unseen entity that connects us all.’

Excerpt from an essay by Dr Sarah Breen Lovett accompanying her curation of FOGG From The 60s To Now, for VIVID Sydney, May 2016.

Roger has developed a 56-year body of work, dating back to 1966, and we are very grateful that he has agreed to include these two important works in Lumière.

www.fogg.com.au