From the Mylar Chamber

Images from Ira Cohen's 1968 film The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda

Encouraged by his friend Allan Ehrlich -who in 1968 had just started a business selling psychedelic posters, black lights and rolls of Mylar reflective paper - to make creative use of his stock, Cohen (assisted by fellow photographer Bill Devore) began a series of alchemical photographic sessions that would imprint his distinctive style into the consciousness of all who came into contact with the melting distortions he managed to capture and project. "I put up these big sheets of Mylar and started to take some photographs," Cohen explains, "hamming it up by making faces or wearing costumes, just to see how it worked. I found that if there was a little ripple in it, you would suddenly get an image where all kinds of distortions happened, and if the distortion was powerful enough then that was the key. I was always looking for something harmonious, where a beautiful face could be somehow made more beautiful by the distorted changes in dimension reflected in the Mylar."