Comments on: Lapis by James Whitney

By: Wo Menschen den Maschinen huldigen

Wo Menschen den Maschinen huldigen — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:01:22 +0000

[...] das Potenzial der Komplexität zu erforschen und dessen Darstellung auf künstlerische Weise umzusetzen. Ich beziehe mich hierbei auf „Lapis“, Juwel des Abends, dank dem ich weiterhin die Hoffnung nicht aufgeben werde, dass neue Medien nicht nur dem Schock und der Nabelschau dienen müssen. Leider erstrahlt dieser Film nur in hoher Qualität in seiner wahren Schönheit, so kann man sich jedowch wenigstens ein Bild davon machen. (Stillbilder in hoher Auflösung sowie spannende Weiterverlinkungen zur ersten Welle computergenerierter Kunst gibt‘s hier ) [...]

By: Kenny J Smith » Thesis References

Kenny J Smith » Thesis References — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 02:38:19 +0000

[...] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Whitney_(animator) http://www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/?p=1021 http://translab.burundi.sk/code/vzx/index.htm [...]

By: More Processing « Sines Creative Sound Design

More Processing « Sines Creative Sound Design — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 17:19:31 +0000

[...] This particular video piece came together whilst working on an exercise in Processing. Using simple transformations and rotations of shapes, the sketch started to look more and more like John Whitney’s Lapis. [...]

By: John

John — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 14:52:51 +0000

Hi Romea. I don’t think those films are on DVD yet but if anyone is going to do a Whitney DVD it’s these people:

http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org/

They already do great collections of work by Jordan Belson and Oskar Fischinger.

By: romea montanaro

romea montanaro — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 12:54:42 +0000

We would like to purchase a copy of James Whitney’s “Lapis” and “Yantra” on dvd format (if available). Could you please tell me where we can obtain a copy of these two titles? These programs will be restricted to classroom instruction only. Any info will be greatly appreciated. Thank you…..Romea Montanaro

By: John

John — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 12:53:59 +0000

A shame about the YouTube removal but I expect it’ll turn up elsewhere. Would be nice if that meant there was a DVD about the Whitneys’ work being planned.

By: Phil

Phil — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 09:26:10 +0000

The translab page (”this fascinating page” link) on early computer art is very informative. Many of the works and related pieces were shown at the Scratch Code exhibit at Bitforms Gallery in 2004.

It seems that the clip of Lapis on YouTube has been removed.

By: John

John — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 15:26:25 +0000

Hi Neil,

I haven’t seen any mention of Lapis being available on DVD yet but a clip has turned up on YouTube:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=iVKNI_TxoH8

And there’s also one of John Whitney’s early computer works:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7h0ppnUQhE&NR=1

By: neil

neil — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 00:58:36 +0000

I saw Lapis at the Whitney Museum today and loved it. Does anyone know if it is available on DVD and where to get it?

By: Jared Caldwell

Jared Caldwell — Thu, 03 May 2007 09:42:50 +0000

Nice article on Lapis. I have been doing a lot of research as of late on avant-garde cinema, and have been looking into the works of the Whitney’s. Lapis is such an interesting work, because of the concepts explored in visual music; it is also very telling of the times in which it was made. I believe Lapis was created using a series of perforated index cards and John Whitney’s “optical printer” to record the light shining through the holes. Creating this apparatus AND working with 16mm film on top of the hours of positioning each card correctly must have been painstaking! Kerry Brougher has a great article in the book “Visual Music: Synaesthesia In Art And Music Since 1900″ if you are interested!

By: John

John — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 16:39:33 +0000

Hi Sandy and thanks, that’s great to hear.

There is other stuff online but it’s not always that informative, mainly mentions of the films and so on. Best starting place is probably the Wikipedia entry which has links and a list of books or other publications discussing James Whitney:

James_Whitney_(filmmaker)

Some good pointers there to longer articles but this field remains sadly under-represented on the web. Best overall introduction is probably the Keith Griffiths documentary mentioned above, since that features extracts from many of the key works. But I’ve no idea how you’d get to see that unless it can be hired somewhere.

By: Sandy Gilfillan

Sandy Gilfillan — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 07:42:39 +0000

Hello, I just wanted to tell you how great it was to find this page on Google. My grandmother’s cousin was James Whitney and I saw some of his works in the Visual Music exhibit at MOCA in LA in 2005. This however was before I really realized the importance of his work. Since then, I’ve garnered a deep interest in the arts and am studying the subject at Bucknell University in PA. Recently, some friends and I have been quite into computer graphics and code and it’s aesthetic uses (www.electricsheep.org or the Milkdrop Visualizer on the Winamp music player for PC). Our crazed interest only fueled my desire to go back and find works by my great-cousins(?) (his brother was an artist, too) so that I could then appreciate them in the way I was unable to when I saw their works at MOCA three years ago. This post has been informative for me and has shown me some good sites where I may research them but I’m curious if you have found anything else that you did not mention in the post. Could you let me know? I would be extremely grateful for your help.