In the year 1859, a high-speed plasma blob was ejected from the sun and slammed into Earth. Massive waves of magnetically charged energy shorted out telegraph lines, which led to many fires. Colorful, Northern Lights-style auroras were seen as far south as Rome and Hawaii.
It was the most powerful disruption of earth’s ionosphere – the high altitude part of the atmosphere made up of a shell of electrically charged atoms and molecules - in recorded history. British amateur astronomer Richard Carrington’s studied the 1859 phenomena and was later credited as the discoverer of solar flares.
The sunstorm sowed terror and awe on 19th century earthlings, and continues to inspire scholars today, from NASA plasma physicists to artists like Fred Worden, an assistant professor of visual arts and experimental filmmaker.
Worden’s film, “1859,” is a psychedelic visual journey, inspired by the solar events of that year. It’s a feast of light, themed around still frames of a lens flare – an unwanted series of starbursts, rings or circles appearing in rows across the image when light is inadvertently refracted by the glass elements in a lens. "1859" is trance- or delirium-inducing, depending on the eye of the beholder.
View an audience-taped clip from a screening of "1859" by Fred Worden:
“1859” and another of Worden’s short experimental films “When Worlds Collude” were accepted and screened at prestigious film festivals including the New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center and the Rotterdam International Film Festival. “1859” won the Jury’s Choice First Prize in the Black Maria Film and Video Festival.
“1859” usually provokes visceral reactions from audiences, as attested by its win of the Juror's discretionary cash award: “The Hecklers Can’t Ruin It Award," at the 2009 Ann Arbor Film Festival, discussed by Worden in the video clip below:
“1859” was also screened at:
2008 New York Film Festival, Lincoln Center, NYC
25 FPS Festival in Zagreb, Croatia
2009 Courtisane Film Festival, Ghent, Belgium
2009 Rotterdam International Film Festival, Netherlands
Brakhage Symposium, University of Colorado, Boulder
2008 Virginia Film Festival, Charlottesville, VA
