As you settle into your seat, you become aware of several things almost simultaneously. First of all there is a large screen in the front of the room, leading you to anticipate some sort of projected imagery.

Secondly, there is a very strange looking console to one side of the screen, on which dials, knobs, and switches of various sizes, shapes and colors can be seen. On the top of the console are several orange, oblong objects that look vaguely familiar. Just below the center of the screen is a large speaker cabinet, which is connected to the console by neatly layered and taped electrical cables. Additional cables can be seen running to the back of the room. Before long, the house lights dim, and the room is filled with the sounds of toe-tapping, turnpike, "truckin'" music. The oblong, orange objects on the top of the console begin to glow, and are recognized as running lights: the kind that perch in rows atop the cabs of the giant Peterbilts and Kenworths that roar through the predawn hours.

At the same time, the screen is filled with changing, flowing washes of saturated colors. The music fades and a voice is heard welcoming you to the "Real Life Show". For roughly the next 60 minutes, you will be on the road with the founder of Spaceco, Ace Space Co., Amazing X Productions, and originator of the Space Atlases. You will journey across Canada from Vancouver to Montreal; across the U.S. from the snow covered mountains near Seattle, Washington to the vast expanses of central Kansas. Along the way, you will meet such esoteric personages as Mr. Peanut, Flakey Rosehips and the folks at the Ant Farm, Truthco, N.E. Thing Co., and the General Idea Corp. You will be there as the 250-foot long inflatable "Universal Worm" is attached to the top of Seattle's Space Needle and allowed to wriggle over the shores of Puget Sound. You will be there in the gondola of a giant hot air balloon as it gently flows over the endless, Kansas Terrain at sunset.

The Space Show itself is rather difficult to describe, because it is so distinctive that one is hard pressed to draw analogies. Color slides play a major role in the presentation, but by no means can it be described as a slide show. Much of the audio is prerecorded and reproduced from cassette cartridges. This information may be music, dialogue, or wild-sound recorded at the time the visuals were shot. A great deal of the audio is "live", interjected into the presentation by speaking into a microphone. At times, it is difficult to discern whether what you are hearing is on tape, or being spoken while you are watching and listening. This served to effectively disorient one's perception of the event.

Various props are utilized throughout the performance. At one point, a double-wide panoramic view of Crested Butte, Colo., is on the screen. Within the image, in the foreground, you see a portable movie screen stuck in the snow. The Colorado Spaceman steps in front of the snow scene (and the audience) wearing a hard hat to which a film strip projector has been attached. He reaches up, turns on the projector on his hat, and proceeds to show images on the screen that is within the image being projected on the lager screen.

The show is very much a performance, involving elements of theater, music, humor, travelogue, intriguing visuals, and sophisticated electronics. Virtually all of the hardware used in the presentation has been designed, built, or modified by the performer. The console unit contains controls for two slide projectors which are mounted on an independent turn-table apparatus. This
allows the dissolving of one image through another, or the remote separation of the projectors, showing two images side by side. This is most effective when the adjacent images form a single, continuous view. The projector-dimming circuitry is also housed in the control unit, along with all of the audio functions used in the show. It is a very tight, professional production that must really be seen to be appreciated.

Who is this Colorado Spaceman anyway, and how did this whole thing come about? The man under the projector hat and behind the console with running lights is Dana Atchley, filmaker, photographer, television producer, poet and incurable nomad. He was educated at Yale and Dartmouth among other places. He has taught film, photography, graphic design, color, typography, mixed media courses, calligraphy, and printmaking at such places the Maryland Institute of Art and University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. Dana lives two months of the year at an elevation of 9,000 feet plus in the Colorado Rockies, and ten months of the year in his Dodge van "connecting space".

Says Dana:

"The Space Show is a reflection of being on the road. It's a document that could only come from that involvement. I started out with a VW bus, doing what I called "TrunkStops", where I took out this big SpaceTrunk. It was filled with slides, videotapes, books and all kinds of stuff. Then I bought the first Dodge van, outfitted it, and lived in that for three years, covering over 100,000 miles.

"I believe space is the connector of all things. Space is what defines the relationships between people. We communicate through space when we talk. We send radio waves through it, along with all these other kinds of vibratory energies. So one day, I said to myself, 'I'll start a company called Spaceco and call myself a Coordinator of Space.'".

"You're either born with the inclination to move, or you're born with the inclination to settle. I have clearly been born with the inclination to move. I have this wonderful privilege of being able to visit a great network of friends once or twice a year to entertain them and to be entertained by them."

"I like to open up the possibility that in the midst of all your work, you can have a good time and still reflect your own interests and sensibilities. My show is about other people. My life is about other people, and yet, I am always there."