The Possible Fog of Heaven is a consideration of the dimensionality of metaphysics and the metaphysics of dimensionality. Elvis speaks for the first time from the afterlife, describing in voice over and graphic text, his experience in Heaven. The Structure of the tape follows the King’s last prescription.
An abstract ballet set to "I've Never Seen a Smile Like Yours".
motion capture choreography simulated against motion capture choreography
Animation, also of a new order in the recent series of short works. Mostly on black space, the figures in blue perform a very compact and jewel-like opera in surreal form, again to Satie’s piano music. Ideally, the film should be projected on a 30" wide white card sitting on a music stand, center stage of a large auditorium or music hall, with sound from the projector piped into the big speaker system. The film is most effective this way, but can be shown normal-size also
This project moves sound and image using wind movements. It shows the alteration of spectrograms with these motion vectors and applies a sound resynthesis.
Flashing lights explode across an apartment as images of a naked woman in bed flicker in and out. Light paintings and projections illuminate a space of confrontation and an assault on the senses.
Schwartz reordered and combined angular contours, broken planes, and distorted proportions in her own pictorial structures in an homage to Picasso's style.
Animator Ryan Larkin does a visual improvisation to music performed by a popular group presented as sidewalk entertainers. His take-off point is the music, but his own beat is more boisterous than that of the musicians. The illustrations range from convoluted abstractions to caricatures of familiar rituals. Without words.
An experimental sampled film which shows the pleasurable art of movies about movies through scenes inside of theaters.
Cut up animation and collage technique by Harry Smith synchronized to the jazz of Thelonious Monk's Mysterioso.
Music: Carl Stone. Colored pen-and-ink drawings, like topological maps of biomorphic objects, grow and evolve from the red star. Once the master image is formed, this continuously throbbing, pulsating sight is used to ring changes based on years of optical work. Music and picture work together to create a mood of ecstatic tranquility. The bright colors, beautiful music, surprise at the end, etc. make this a good film for young children. Awards: Sinking Creek Film & Video Festival, 1973; Washington National Student Film Festival, 1974; Brooklyn Independent Filmmakers Exposition, 1974; Vanguard Int'l Competition of Electronic Music for Film, 1974; Humboldt Film Festival, 1974. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with iotaCenter and National Film Preservation Foundation in 2007.
This animated short is a play on motion set against a background of multi-hued sky. Spheres of translucent pearl float weightlessly in the unlimited panorama of the sky, grouping, regrouping or colliding like the stylized burst of some atomic chain reaction. The dance is set to the musical cadences of Bach, played by pianist Glenn Gould.
Sausage City illustrates Beckett's additive cycle process. Constantly evolving rectangular shapes provide a foundation for an environment inhabited by mutating blobs - or sausages. Sounds and shapes create a moving space that teeters on the edge between control and chaos. The ending is somewhat mystifying, pulling us out of the surreal environment and revealing its origins.
A whirlwind of improvisation combines the images of animator Pierre Hébert with the avant-garde sound of techno whiz Bob Ostertag in this singular multimedia experience, a hybrid of live animation and performance art.
High Voltage is constructed from footage James Whitney contributed to Belson for use in one of his Vortex concerts.