Once upon a time, a bunch of overworked frazzled IT guys decided to have a wild night out which consisted mostly of dropping acid and hanging around on bean bags at one guy's place, probably his mom's basement. While they were tripping and waiting for mom's meatloaf, one of them proposed a brilliant idea. "You know what would be wicked?" he said. "It would be like super sweet if we had a giant, like screen saver." And so the idea of Sonic Vision was born. But don't be too quick to dismiss this as some half-baked scheme of a burnt-out druggie IT desk jockey. This is more than your average screen saver, unless your computer's screen saver was designed by MTV2 and premier computer graphics studios, and choreographed to a mix by Moby.
The entire Sonic Vision audio-visual trip plays out over a 60-by-40 foot suspended screen at the Fels Planetarium in the Franklin Institute. The soundtrack is really kicking with everything from David Bowie, Radiohead and Coldplay to Prodigy and White Zombie. Moby has really done a stellar job of picking a wide variety of familiar but uncommon hits and techno ballads. The graphics themselves are a mix of kaleidoscopes, Spirographs, stained glass and just plain drugged-out delusions. The interaction of graphics and soundtrack produces an unpredictable experience reminiscent of LSD highs. For example, during Coldplay's instant classic "Clocks," a beautiful landscape of colors quickly morphs into a jungle gym covered with little green men while the music slowly morphs into Fishcherspooner's "Emerge." On the whole, the show is a perfect mix between the weird, such as the 60-foot tower of spying eyes or raving Teletubby-style robots, stunning natural landscapes and brilliant geometric color explosions. And, off the record, your Franklin Institute experience could be best enjoyed in "the right state of mind," if you get our drift.
