His output is wildly uneven and spread across painting, drawing, film, sound poetry, fiction and performance. Despite this, he emerges as a substantial figure, not merely a satellite of William Burroughs and the other denizens of the Beat Hotel.

Hari Kunzu on Brion Gysin in this month’s Frieze Magazine.

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A visit to the dream machine plans booklet and reading the above article makes me think of how the experience of looking into the dream machine in action (trance) might possibly be replicated in the reading of prose. Could prose be written in a density and rhythm (pedantic ?)  that permits flashes to come through (that create flickering,) and offer what this unit did. There must be examples of this out and about there. But likely more of a 45rpm than a 33rpm. Gertrude Stein, Beckett’s Worstwood Ho (a better example no doubt abounds, but this springs obviously to mind). It could be fun to construct a Dream Machine and then in parallel create a reading of some writings and record both and see whether a parallel can be drawn. Can we be intoxicated aurally — akin to this visual?

Je ne sais pas.