Lichtspiel: Contemporary Abstract Animation and Visual Music

FILM AT REDCAT PRESENTS

Tue Nov 3 | 8:30 pm Jack H. Skirball Series $9 [students $7, CalArts $5]

Co-presented with Center for Visual Music

Los Angeles Premieres

This ravishing “play of light” explores rhythmic abstractions in the tradition of Oskar Fischinger and visual music animation. The centerpiece of the program is the Los Angeles debut of Joost Rekveld’s #37 (Netherlands, 2009, 35mm CinemaScope, 31 min.), a stunningly beautiful study of the propagation and diffraction of light through crystalline structures. Sure to bend more than a few minds, the lineup also offers award-winning animated shorts from around the world, most of which are screening in Los Angeles for the first time. Featured artists include Scott Draves, Robert Seidel, Steven Woloshen, Bärbel Neubauer, Thorsten Fleisch, Bret Battey, Michael Scroggins, Samantha Krukowski, Mondi, Devon Damonte, Scott Nyerges, Vivek Patel and Yusuke Nakajima. Highlighted as well is the final film by the late CGI wizard Richard “Doc” Baily.

Lichtspiel showcases a variety of animation techniques, from handmade camera-less (hand-painted, taped and scratched) films to traditional drawn animation to live-object animation to microphotography and state-of-the-art 3D computer graphics. Visual music styles are just as varied, with some artists like Draves and Baily writing computer code to realize their visions, while others draw inspiration from the pioneering work of Fischinger or the cosmic meditations of Jordan Belson.

In person: Joost Rekveld

Program

Program notes are adapted from the descriptions by the artists and Center for Visual Music. Screening formats are digital unless otherwise noted. Please note that the titles below are not listed in the order in which they will be presented. The program order will be confirmed closer to the date of the

www.redcat.org | 1

event.

#37 (Netherlands, 2009, 35mm Cinemascope, 31 min., color, sound) by Joost Rekveld Joost Rekveld’s latest in his ongoing series of films imagines a multi- dimensional universe – one inhabited by particles that act on their neighbors and organize themselves into constellations with varying levels of symmetry. The constellations produce simulated diffraction patterns, which in turn constitute the film’s images. The International Film Festival Rotterdam has hailed #37 as “an undeniable masterpiece.” Rekveld describes his body-of- work as inspired by the lesser frequented by-ways in the history of science and technology. More recently, his fascination with the spatial aspects of light and complex organization has prompted him to explore, in addition to his filmmaking, such new fields as cybernetics, artificial life and robotic architecture. Since 2008, the Dutch artist has headed the ArtScience Interfaculty of the Royal Conservatory and the Royal Academy in The Hague.

Morphs of Pegasus (Germany, 2009, excerpt of work-in-progress, approx. 7 min., color, sound) by Bärbel Neubauer Considered one of Europe’s leading experimental animators, Bärbel Neubauer is as adept making handmade films, painting and scratching directly onto celluloid, as she is creating 3D digital abstract animation. The prolific artist has also composed music and her own soundtracks since 1991. Morphs of Pegasus, she says, “is a journey through planet-like worlds and objects of phantasy. There are no cuts; the spectator moves inside the space from one place to the next.”

The Firebird (US, 2007, 4x3 version, 4:15 min., color, sound) by Scott Draves Music by Kenji Williams This homage to Igor Stravinsky’s 1910 symphony is itself an excerpt from Dreams in High Fidelity #2 – re-rendered at 2400x2400 resolution for full- dome projection, but scaled down from the planetarium version. Graphics were created by the open-source Electric Sheep, a cyborg mind consisting of 60,000 computers and people communicating with a genetic algorithm, developed by Scott Draves in 1999. Draves also created the Flame algorithm in 1992 and the Bomb visual-musical instrument in 1994. His work is permanently hosted on MoMA.org. xtacism (US, 2005, 5 min., color, sound) by Richard Baily with John Buchanan

www.redcat.org | 2

Music by Richard Baily Xtacism was created with SPORE, the extraordinary CGI program developed by the late visual effects luminary Richard Baily (1953-2006). Baily called SPORE, a “software/aesthetic development project that [grew] out of a proprietary ultra high-speed particle renderer.” He said of xtacism: “There is no middle, beginning, end, it is like the river, it just keeps on going...” A CalArts alumnus, Baily founded his own visual effects animation company, Image Savant, in 1992. His work can be seen in feature films ranging from Fight Club (1999) to Superman Returns (2006), as well as in numerous title sequences, commercials and music videos, including for Madonna and Janet Jackson.

Energie! (Germany, 2007, 5 min., sound) by Thorsten Fleisch This award-winning work takes the old cathode-ray technology of television and spins it into uncommon realms of visual wonder. Instead of the TV set’s controlled beam of electrons, photographic paper is exposed to uncontrolled high-voltage jolts. The outcome is time-lapse poetry that’s been literally charged into existence. Experimental film/videomaker Thorsten Fleisch often applies crystals, fire and electricity directly on 16mm film. futures (Germany, 2006, 4 min., color, sound) by Robert Seidel Music: zero 7 feat, José González, courtesy of Atlantic Records In futures, according to Robert Seidel: “You will see crushed things, completely abstracted… [coming] together and building up to something we all have seen before… Like our true wishes and desires… [taking] shape over time and [getting] clearer… followed by the next longing… Innuendos, artifacts and… rough synchronization add subtle emotions to the uncertain process that builds the morbid tableaux of all possible futures.” Seidel, who is Berlin-based, considers his work to be an exploration of “organic-digital graphics.”

Adagio for Jon and Helena (US, 2009, 5 min., color) by Michael Scroggins Using instruments to compose abstract animation in real-time has been at the heart of Michael Scroggins’ work for over 30 years. The pioneer of absolute-animation performance and CalArts professor dedicates this “continuous-take digital recording from a live solo liquid light projection performance” to his “liquid light teachers Jon Greene and Helena Lebrun.” “I developed the unique techniques used in this performance in 1968,” Scroggins explains, “and have recently revisited them in order to enjoy the

www.redcat.org | 3

immediacy of this particular form of direct physical expression…. [I]t is the affective power found at the edges of gestural control and indeterminate chaos that motivates me.”

Shimmer Box Drive (Canada, 2007, 3:45 min., color, sound) by Steven Woloshen Montreal filmmaker Steven Woloshen describes Shimmer Box Drive as “[r]eflections, recollections and thoughts from the front seat of an automobile…. [C]reated in a small wood and glass box installed in my car, [it] catalogs four years of impressions, desires and thoughts about the road ahead.” Woloshen is a longtime exponent of handmade film, and teaches, exhibits and lectures extensively on the genre. artreading v. 1 (US, 2008, 4:19 min., b/w & color, sound) by Samantha Krukowski A trained architect and art historian, Samantha Krukowski makes painterly abstract videos, often without a camera. “artreading,” she says, “is a response to image saturation in contemporary culture, a critique of image excess as it relates to cultural memory, and a personal attempt to remember images from the multitude presented in the art, architecture and film magazines that appear monthly on my doorstep.” Krukowski teaches design in the Department of Architecture at Iowa State University.

Mercurius (UK, 2007, 6:09 min., color, sound) by Bret Battey Volatile and unstable, Mercurius shifts rapidly between multitudes of seemingly conflicting states. A sound-synthesis process and nearly 12,000 individual points are continually transformed and warped, restrained and released, without cuts, to form sonic and visual curtains and vortexes evoking both unity and destruction. Using special algorithms, artist Bret Battey creates electronic, acoustic, and multimedia concert works and installations that emphasize continuous flow and transformation, an aesthetic inspired in part by his practice of Vipassana meditation. Battey has earned numerous honors, including the prestigious Prix Ars Electronica, for his work.

Welcome Licht (US, 2009, 35mm, 2 min., silent) by Devon Damonte A camera-free, direct-on-film invocation made especially for the occasion that summons the Light/Licht, assumes the position of Play/Spiel, and calls to order assembled deities for a transcendent, incandescent screening. Devon Damonte is a Washington state-based artist who has specialized in making, teaching and showing direct animation for over 20 years.

www.redcat.org | 4

Polar (US, 2007, 1:35 min., color, silent) by Scott Nyerges In Polar, Scott Nyerges deploys the melting of the Arctic ice cap as “a metaphor for a body out of balance.” The film/videomaker – who counts Stan Brakhage, Jordan Belson and Scott Bartlett among his influences – writes: “Fissures emerge. Mass transforms. The sea falls into itself. This silent film was created with hand-painted 35mm film strips and digital video.”

Kronos (US, 2005, 4:20 min., color, sound) by Mondi Kronos is the seventh in a series of 10 films predicated on spherical harmonics. Its creator, Mondi, lives and works in Stockholm, using custom tools and software to explore the intersections between disparate forms of expression.

INCREASE (Japan, 2009, 6 min., color, sound) by Yusuke Nakajima This video by the Osaka-based Yusuke Nakajima explores the visual illusion of objects seeming to enlarge in their afterimage.

Miserlou (US, 2005, 3 min., color, sound) by Vivek Patel Music: Aaron Kula; performed by the Klezmer Company Orchestra “Miserlou uses abstract elements to create a sensual show. Visual elements come to the screen and exist like actors in a play. Musical parts are expressed visually to draw a stronger association between what is seen and heard. Impeccable synchronization between the two; creates a sweet show for the eyes and the ears.” (Vivek Patel)

Curated by Center for Visual Music with Steve Anker

Funded in part with generous support from Wendy Keys and Donald Pels

Thanks to Suzan Pitt

Please note: Dutch filmmaker and installation artist Joost Rekveld will also appear in person at the first West Coast retrospective of his films, entitled Light Matters, on Nov. 8 at 7 pm at UCLA’s Billy Wilder Theater in Westwood. The retrospective is presented by Center for Visual Music and the UCLA Film

www.redcat.org | 5

& Television Archive. Four of Rekveld’s films will screen at UCLA, but not #37, which will screen exclusively at REDCAT.

###