Northern Lights (Cambridge)

Northern Lights (Cambridge) is the first in a series of related works that touch on themes of perception, coincidence, and the phenomenology of memory. The apparatus that generates the film’s aurora-like images is in fact a work of light art from the early 1980’s by artist Earl Reiback that is owned by Tribe’s parents. The film’s musical score was performed by Cambridge composer Jorit Dykystra on the Lyricon. The Lyricon’s optical sound technology is analogous to that employed by 16mm film: in the Lyricon, the musician’s breath moves a membrane that allows light to hit a photo cell which generates sound. In this way, in both apparatuses, sound becomes light which becomes sound again.