Doctor Laser: Inside the Wondrous Lab of One of the World's Last Holographers
Posted by Motherboard on Tuesday, Aug 17, 2010
In this episode of Motherboard – produced by Pam Tietze, the winner of our Make Your Own Documentary contest – gets up close and personal with one of the last dogged practitioners of the holographic arts.
Jason Sapan, as his birth certificate calls him, is sort of like a laser Doc Brown, and his cluttered New York studio-laboratory (replete with devoted interns) feels something like a time machine, a living ode to a seemingly obsolete art. But listen to him tell it – and take a look around his studio – and you might agree that there’s no more accurate way of representing the world than with holography.
The walls bear witness to his cachet at the height of the holographic era: Andy Warhol, Pierre Cardin, Cher, Bill Clinton, Sally Jesse Raphael, Ed Koch and Isaac Asimov have all sat for Doctor Laser.
His laser lighting has been used at the original Studio 54, on CBS, in print advertising for Macy’s and Revlon, on Broadway, for book and magazine covers, and graphics at the original Studio 54, and a number of music videos, including a starring role in one by Flock of Seagulls, which landed him the first on-air credit in a video on MTV. In 2001, the producers of Vanilla Sky asked him to help them design a saxophone-playing hologram. (Rest assured: had nothing to do with this.)
While moving holograms that float in midair remain the stuff of science-fiction, Doctor Laser has pieced together a reality that’s much stranger: that studio in Midtown Manhattan, tucked into a former blacksmith’s forge, is a veritable wonder cabinet of dancing 3D imagery, flashing lasers and homemade holography equipment. He revels in that DIY-ness.
“To be able to take the ordinary, and work with whatever’s at hand, and turn it into a technological miracle” is what excites him most. "’You could have picked this up at Radio Shack. Why are you building it yourself, Doctor?’ he says, imitating one of his gaggle of mad, devoted interns. “Because I can.”
But being one of the last people at the party is tough, and in spite of current 3D obsessions, getting the world to come back to the party seems even harder. But he’s not giving up. He’s even confident he can get President Obama to become the first sitting president to pose for a hologram. “Delusion isn’t always a bad thing,” he says. Neither is illusion – especially when it’s made with homemade lenses and lasers.
Update:
Back in August Motherboard reported that Doctor Laser was working on making the first-ever presidential hologram of Barack Obama. Since then, Doctor Laser’s Facebook page was erased and disintegrated into the vast void of the web. Foul play was ruled out in the case. Now Doctor Laser’s Holographic Studios Facebook Page is back and we can still help make Obama a hologram by following the simple instructions on the project’s Facebook Page. Let’s do this. Because it’s badass and proves we’re ahead of the curve as a nation if we have a hologram in office.
Visit Doctor Laser’s online studio, see Pam Tietze’s site, and watch more Motherboard videos.
Filed under:
