Free Columbia Project Proposal
The Metamorphosis of Fear
A project incorporating painting, colored light, video, movement, sound, music and social collaboration.
In 1918 at the end of the first world war Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), the Austrian-born founder of anthroposophy, gave the musician, composer, and scenery designer Jan Stuten (1890-1948) a task: to create a new, alternative color- art combining sound, colored light, color-movement, and colored shadows in a way that would leave the viewer free to interpret what was seen. In 1919 Steiner gave Stuten the theme Metamorphoses of Fear for the first work of this new art form, a theme related to people’s experiences from the just-ended world war. At that time many people in central Europe were full of fear, and Steiner hoped this artwork could help them to transform or overcome their fear. In response to Steiner’s idea, Stuten drew with chalk on packing-paper fifteen sketches, which would be something like a full-score (or “storyboards”) for a new colored light-play, Metamorphoses of Fear. That which he suggested through the sketches as stage-pictures was intended to move and change itself in relationship to music.
It seems the world is often in a state of fear and so once again it seems appropriate to work with this theme and multimedia approach. In 2022 Nathaniel Williams led an exploration of this colored light play in association with composer Don Jamison. In this project Frank Agrama and Laura Summer learned to play the “light horses”, overhead projectors with abstract colored light movements created by wheels of color.
Now a group of artists has come together to take this work further as a collaboration between people and their various media. The group includes: Frank Agrama- colored light, Loki Anthony - animation, Zuri Burns – overall support, Soren Dietzel-music, Zoi Doehrer-music, Kai Naor-music, Sampsa Pirtola-video, Matt Sawaya-spoken word/music, Laura Summer-painting, Jen Zimberg -music.
Laura has created three painted versions of the progression on metamorphosing fear based loosely on Jan Stutten’s sketches. Now our challenge is to work together to bring it into movement and sound.
We plan to work together for the next year experimenting and investigating this work, planning an exhibit and a series of performances in late 2024 or early 2025. If you are interested in supporting this project you can do so here.
Metamorphosis of Fear Laura Summer 2023 24”x48” oil on board
