Category: {abstract cinema}

Abstract cinema

Continu-discontinu 2010, a film by Piotr Kamler

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A recent film by Piotr Kamler that’s not on the DVD collection from aaa, Continu-discontinu 2010 is a short animation that’s a lot more abstract than Kamler’s earlier works although you might detect the director’s hand in the motion of some of its wandering particles. In place of the electronic scores that soundtrack many of his films there’s a recording of a viol piece composed by Marin Marais.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• L’Araignéléphant
• Le labyrinthe and Coeur de secours
• Chronopolis by Piotr Kamler

7362, a film by Pat O’Neill

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This week is a psychedelic one for Londoners: on Monday Britain’s first Psychedelic Society was launched at Conway Hall (the Society uses my Psychedelic Alice artwork in some of its graphics); today (the 4th) there’s an evening of short psychedelic films at BFI Southbank: Jet Propelled Cinema: How Psychedelia Infected Hollywood Sci-Fi. A couple of these—James Whitney’s Yantra and Scott Bartlett’s OffOn—have featured here already but Pat O’Neill’s 7362 (1967) was one I’d not seen before. O’Neill’s film is a 10-minute exploration of vertical symmetry, solarisation and rapid strobing of a kind that no doubt carries an epilepsy warning when it’s screened in public. An electronic soundtrack by Joseph Byrd and Michael Moore connects the film to the psychedelic music scene via Joe Byrd whose cult band The United States of America recorded one of the best albums of the period a year later. 7362 is currently available on DVD together with 25 other shorts in Treasures IV: American Avant-Garde Film, 1947–1986.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The abstract cinema archive

Here and There, a film by Andrzej Pawlowski

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I only realised earlier today that the post about The Saragossa Manuscript provides continuity with last week’s examples of Polish cinema; unintentional but it shows where my head is at just now.

Here’s another example, and another abstract filmmaker I hadn’t come across before. Andrzej Pawlowski (1925–1986) was also a painter, and his films take a painterly approach to their manipulation of light and colour. Here and There is a short from 1957 that would have been labelled psychedelic if it had been made ten years later. The gorgeous visuals seem at odds with the score by Adam Walacinski, a typical piece of mid-century dissonance that now seems less avant-garde than merely unsuitable. One challenge of abstract cinema is to find music (if music is required) that doesn’t seem to have been chosen at random. Here and There would work just as well with many other six-minute pieces as its score.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The abstract cinema archive

Power Spot by Michael Scroggins

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I was going to post this anyway but there’s a coincidental connection with yesterday’s post in the person of Richard Horowitz whose keyboards can be heard on the soundtrack. The music is Power Spot, the opening number on the album of the same name released by ECM in 1986. Also present on the album are Brian Eno (who co-produces with Daniel Lanois), Michael Brook and others. I’d tell you that Power Spot is a great album but then I like everything Hassell does so I’m rather biased. But it is a great album.

Michael Scroggins’ video was commissioned to accompany the release of the album, and if it looks of its time today it’s still an impressive piece, not least because Scroggins says it was created through live improvisation. That puts it in a different class to earlier abstract accompaniments for music which are either animated frame-by-frame or created independently with the music added later. (Thanks to Paul Schütze for the tip.)

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The abstract cinema archive