Ellis D. Fogg

http://www.fogg.com.au/

I began playing with light when I was very young with a bicycle torch and bathroom windows glass. Then from the 1950s making light sculptures for theatre shows.

After I left school in 1959 I played with Light Shows to records in my bedroom then in 1966 at University Theatre realised I could maybe make a living out of it and have been going ever since, based in Australia but also working in South East Asia and India.

I have never really stopped dong Light Show's during this time and when there was no money we did it for free.

My latest project is a permanent moving rainbow light installation on the beautiful painted facades of the buildings in Nimbin, New South Wales which is the epicentre of alternative culture and marijuana law reform movement in Australia we call OZ....the home of the Hemp Embassy.

Artists of the sexual and cultural revolution of the 60s were my main influences Martin Sharp, Richard Neville and Albie Thoms (my contemporaries) are all dead now. My shows these days are designed to recall and remember the legacy of the dreams of the 60s for future generations and have always had a psychedelic and didactic intent. Psychedelic as in the original sense of the word, an epiphany....an expanding of consciousness and awareness.

My favourite Australian band to work with in the 60s was Tully, these days I work with small intense groups and solo performers such as Marguerite Montes, Edwina Blush, Jex Lopez and with experimental and spiritual music such as the Spanish duende.

Cooperation wise I have worked with Albie Thoms UBU Light Show.

Origin of the name:

I was always called Fog as I dreamed/meditated/observed a lot. Then, to much amusement I found out the name of the doctor treating ODs for San Francisco’s Summer of Love Flower Children was a Dr Ellis D Sox and I wanted a name that would include my friends and collaborators and not just me so devised the group name Ellis D Fogg.

LSD was still legal at the time but when it was made illegal I thought bugger it I am keeping the name!

I am always changing personnel to get the best operators (ones better than me) to all work together with me writing the score and performing like a conductor.

One amusing story was that the police banned our show once because the sergeant said “Strobes cause immorality"

In the beginning we used borrowed Projectors and Overheads from University. Theatre lights from the Opera company, we use video projectors these days, often with effects that we filmed way back in the 60s.

Over the years we have tried all sorts of non-standard items, too many to name, plus in the early days there was no Lightshow equipment for sale before manufacturers got onto it so we would make our own special effect projectors and effects, Films, liquids etc. (It is not difficult).

Back then we had a couple of dozen projectors, plus I was always looking for odd and unusual equipment but now its not many now as it is easy to rent equipment with a technician these days. The really unusual items are mainly digitised on my hard drive and controlled by what ever is the latest controller

After all thes years I am still in the Lighting Industry and it has taken me around the world