Lasers shine as art Lasers shine as art by Richard J. Weiss When asking around of friends in the scientific community, I am continually surprised at how few optical scientists have attended a Laserium performance at one of the planetariums. Scanning mirrors move the beam from point to point on a millisecond time scale. One of the surprises is that every performance is different. A laserist sits in front of a control panel and directs the light beams as the mood moves him, much like a piano virtuoso varies his concerto interpretation from performance to performance. First comes the music.
Popular songs fill the hall with a high-quality recording of selected pieces.
These do not vary from show to show. Once the music begins it sets the story line, the tempo, and the sonic amplitude variations. The laserist then directs his display of laser beams to produce multicolored geometrical figures that rotate, gyrate, wax, wane, and any other contortion that adds an optical brilliance to the musical composition. This contrasts with the successful Disney show Fantasia in that the Laserium figures are primarily geometrical and fill much more of the field of view as they dance over the 2 solid angle of the planetarium sky. In the main, the figures do not represent anthropomorphic movements.