
Visual effects are a big part of the ambience. Marcell Marias demonstrates his video feedback system that turns a user's hand movements into colorful, swirling displays.
Marias and a friend started 'Vortexya,' a Chapel Hill multimedia company creating computer animations, video and special effects for dance parties. They've gotten a lot of work at raves and other parties that want sophisticated, high-tech visuals.Visual effects at raves range from simple strobe lights to elaborate laser displays and projected images. Sometimes the effects are low-tech, like colored oil lamps reminiscent of the sixties and seventies psychedelia. Other times, several-thousand-dollar Intellibeam lights, controlled by computers and typically found in big theater productions and concerts, create dancing color and lighting effects.
The participants get in on the action, too, by dancing with chemical glowsticks to create swirling trails of light. Some of these dancers have mastered undulating hand movements that make the glowsticks appear to float and dance in midair.
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Copyright 1998 Jim Webb. All rights reserved.
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