The Center for Visual Music Los Angeles as Guest at ZKM | Karlsruhe
Wed, May 11, 2011 6 pm CEST, Lecture
Cindy Keefer, Director of the Center for Visual Music Los Angeles, will discuss and screen work by pioneers of kinetic art and pre-digital cinema from CVM's archives. CVM is a Los Angeles archive dedicated to visual music, experimental animation and abstract media. CVM preserves and promotes films by Oskar Fischinger, Jordan Belson, Charles Dockum, Mary Ellen Bute, Jules Engel, Harry Smith and others, plus contemporary artists. Keefer will screen work from CVM's archives including Dockum's “Mobilcolor Projections,” Bute's “Abstronics” (an early oscilloscope film), a short Bute documentary, the Fischinger “LumigraphFilm,” and more. She will discuss CVM's work with the Fischinger legacy, current preservation work, and “Raumlichtkunst,” the new restoration of his 1920s multiple-projector performances.
Afterwards Jordan Belson’s “Films Films Sacred and Profane” will be presented with an introduction by Cindy Keefer in association with Center for Visual Music.
Born in Chicago and raised in the Bay Area, Jordan Belson trained as a painter before turning his attention to filmmaking after discovering the abstract films of Oskar Fischinger, Norman McLaren and Hans Richter. Since 1947, Belson has explored consciousness, transcendence, and the nature of light itself in a visionary body of work that has been called ‘cosmic cinema’: brimming with vibrant color, mandalas, liquid forms and mesmerising rhythms. Starting in 1957, Belson collaborated with sound artist Henry Jacobs on the “Vortex Concerts,” multimedia events that combined new electronic music from around the world with Belson’s visual effects projected on the 65-foot dome of the California Academy of Science’s Morrison Planetarium. This program features rarely screened films including “Caravan”(1952), “Séance” (1959), a new preservation print of “Chakra”(1972), and more.
Caravan 1952, 16mm, 4 min. Very rarely screened
Seance 1959, 16mm, 3 min.
Allures 1961, 16mm, 8 min. Sound: Henry Jacobs, and Jordan Belson
Samadhi 1967, 16mm transferred to digiBeta, 6 min. Sound: Jordan Belson
Chakra 1972, 16mm, 6 min. Sound: Jordan Belson. New preserved print
Light 1973, 16mm, 6 min. Sound: Jordan Belson
Cycles 1974, 16mm, 10 min. (Collaboration with Stephen Beck)
Music of the Spheres 1977/abridged version 2002, 16mm transferred to digiBeta, 7 min. Music: Iasos. The original, longer version was revised by Belson in 2002.
Afterwards Jordan Belson’s “Films Films Sacred and Profane” will be presented with an introduction by Cindy Keefer in association with Center for Visual Music.
Born in Chicago and raised in the Bay Area, Jordan Belson trained as a painter before turning his attention to filmmaking after discovering the abstract films of Oskar Fischinger, Norman McLaren and Hans Richter. Since 1947, Belson has explored consciousness, transcendence, and the nature of light itself in a visionary body of work that has been called ‘cosmic cinema’: brimming with vibrant color, mandalas, liquid forms and mesmerising rhythms. Starting in 1957, Belson collaborated with sound artist Henry Jacobs on the “Vortex Concerts,” multimedia events that combined new electronic music from around the world with Belson’s visual effects projected on the 65-foot dome of the California Academy of Science’s Morrison Planetarium. This program features rarely screened films including “Caravan”(1952), “Séance” (1959), a new preservation print of “Chakra”(1972), and more.
Caravan 1952, 16mm, 4 min. Very rarely screened
Seance 1959, 16mm, 3 min.
Allures 1961, 16mm, 8 min. Sound: Henry Jacobs, and Jordan Belson
Samadhi 1967, 16mm transferred to digiBeta, 6 min. Sound: Jordan Belson
Chakra 1972, 16mm, 6 min. Sound: Jordan Belson. New preserved print
Light 1973, 16mm, 6 min. Sound: Jordan Belson
Cycles 1974, 16mm, 10 min. (Collaboration with Stephen Beck)
Music of the Spheres 1977/abridged version 2002, 16mm transferred to digiBeta, 7 min. Music: Iasos. The original, longer version was revised by Belson in 2002.
- Organization / Institution
- ZKM