Expanded Abstraction: CVM Program, Los Angeles

Opening late July,2011, Los Angeles:
Expanded Abstraction:
A special 3-screen program from CVM featuring Scott Draves' Generation 244, plus work by Robert Seidel, Baerbel Neubauer, Christina McPhee, Maura McDonnell and Charles Dockum. Curated by Cindy Keefer. LA County Museum of Art, central plaza, Stark Bar. On view beginning July 28, evenings through January, 2012. Images courtesy Scott Draves and the Electric Sheep. PREVIEW of McPhee's Bird of Paradise video triptych.

(re posted from CVM events page: http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org/Events.htm

OPENING NIGHT - Thursday, July 28

Please join CVM at LACMA at Stark Bar - Thursday, July 28

CVM's new *Expanded Abstraction* 3-screen program begins in LACMA's Stark
Bar (central plaza, next to main entrance) at 8 pm...that's the same night
as Marclay's THE CLOCK 24 hour screening in Bing Theatre...so please join us while taking a break from The CLOCK, as Stark Bar will be open until 2am screening the CVM program. Or come just to see abstract film/digital work curated by CVM.

*Expanded Abstraction* features *Scott Draves*' *Generation 244* (2010),
plus triptych work by *Christina McPhee, Robert Seidel, Baerbel Neubauer,
Maura McDonnell, Charles Dockum* and more. Runs through January 2012,
evenings only.

RUSSIAN PIONEERS OF SOUND ART AND MUSICAL TECHNOLOGY IN 1910-1930

GENERATION Z
RUSSIAN PIONEERS OF SOUND ART AND MUSICAL TECHNOLOGY IN 1910-1930

June 9 - July 20, 2011

OSA Archivum and the authors of GENERATION Z exhibition cordially invite you to the opening which will take place on 9th of June at 6:00 p.m. The exhibition will run at OSA Archivum, Budapest from June 9 till July 20, 2011. 

ADDRESS: 1051 BUDAPEST, ARANY J. U. 32.
http://www.osaarchivum.org/
exhibition details at http://bit.ly/lSXejp

Variophone, theremin terpsitone, rhythmicon, emiriton, ekvodin, graphical sound – just to mention a few of the amazing innovations of the beginning of the 20th century in Soviet Russia, a country and time turbulent with revolutions, wars and totalitarian dictatorship.
While the history of Russian post-revolutionary avant-garde art and music is fairly well documented, the inventions and discoveries, names and fates of researchers of sound, creators of musical machines and noise orchestras, founders of new musical technologies have been largely forgotten except, perhaps, Leon Theremin, inventor of the first electronic musical instrument, the theremin.

This community of creators, however, was inherently incompatible with the totalitarian state. By the late 1930s it became effectively written out of histories, wiped out from text books.

Many of their ideas and inventions, considered as utopian at that time, were decades later rein vented abroad. We still use them today not knowing their origin.

This exhibition is an attempt at reconstructing and understanding the Russian artistic utopia.

The exhibition runs from June 9 till July 20.

June 24, 2011, on the Night of Museums, 10:00 p.m.:

Multimedia theremin concert: Najmányi László, visual artist, performer, theremin specialist.

Thanks to CVM for original post: http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org/

Oskar Fischinger Painting Exhibition - Santa Fe, New Mexico

Oskar Fischinger (1900-1967) Major Painting Exhibition at the Peyton Wright Gallery - Santa Fe, New Mexico
Opening July 2011

Oskar Fischinger - Layers of Sound

Oskar Fischinger's paintings are being exhibited at the art dealers gallery - Peyton Wright Gallery.  These paintings are a real treat to view.  Peyton Wright Gallery have put many of Oskar Fischinger's paintings online, many of these have probably not been seen before, as they have not been put online before.

Some of these paintings have strong musical themes.  There are several that I really like and a beautiful one for me is, Layers of Sound.  However, there are many others and Fischinger's very distinct artistic and aesthetic style is really apparent.  A great treat to be able to view these paintings online via the Peyton Wright Gallery, and if you are lucky enough to be near Sante Fe, a treat to see in reality.

View Paintings online at:
http://www.peytonwright.com/art/main.php?g2_itemId=9200 

'Raumlichtmusik' - Early 20th Century Abstract Cinema Immersive Environments.

"'Raumlichtmusik' - Early 20th Century Abstract Cinema Immersive Environments."
Essay by Cindy Keefer (Director Center for Visual Music)

"Leonardo Electronic Almanac, Creative Data Special Issue. Leonardo: The International Society for the Arts, Sciences, and Technology, and MIT Press. October 2009."

This is an important historical visual music essay on Oskar Fischinger and Jordan Belson's early experiments in creating abstract cinema for immersive projection environments. It traces the origins in their work of what is more common today - the immersive multimedia environment. Information about plans Fischinger had to present a multimedia performance for the Farblichtmusik shows (started by László) has been researched and documented in this essay and is very exciting information to check out for the scholar interested in accurately tracing the origins of visual music and in particular, its links to contemporary multimedia performance. The vortex concerts, are discussed in detail. These concerts are important to check out for both historical visual music but also in relation to tracing the origins of using projected visuals alongside electronic music, which is so common today, in relation to video projection with electroacoustic music. This article traces these connections and provides an introduction to its history. Do go and read.

Abstract

"Filmmakers Oskar Fischinger and Jordan Belson created cinematic multimedia experiments from 1926 to 1959; three of these events are predecessors to immersive environments: (A) Beginning in 1926, Fischinger's multiple projector shows combining abstract films, colored light projections, and painted slides; (B) Fischinger's 1944 (unrealized) concept for a dome theatre with center film projectors filling the sphere, creating "endless space without perspective" and (c) Belson and Henry Jacobs’ 1950s Vortex Concerts at Morrison Planetarium, utilizing multiple projectors and 38 speakers, with
“no separation of audience and stage or screen; the entire domed area becomes a living theater of sound and light."

Article can be read online at:
http://www.leonardo.info/LEA/CreativeData/CD_Keefer.pdf

Visit CVM Library Page for more resources in relation to visual music.
http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org/Library.html

CVM Lecture And Screening - At ZKM Germany - May 11, 2011

CVM at Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe, Germany May 11.

For more information on this event, visit
http://on1.zkm.de/zkm/stories/storyReader$7532

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... 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 “Lumigraph Film,” 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.

Followed by the screening “Films Sacred and Profane” by Jordan Belson

Visit: http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org/Events.htm
for more information on Center For Visual Music and visual music related events and news

Visual Music - Supporting Programme

VISUAL MUSIC PROGRAMME at 18th Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film

The Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film, May 2011 presented a Visual Music supporting programme at the festival.

http://www.itfs.de/en/

CVM (Center for Visual Music) presented two historical programs of abstract animated films by Oskar Fischinger, including preserved prints and rarely-screened films.
Title of Program: Oskar Fischinger Retrospective, May 7, 2011

Cornelia and Holger Lund presented contemporary visual music
Title of Programme: Visual Music: Contemporary, May 8, 2011.

A programme was put together on Norman McLaren
Title of Programme: The animator as musician, May 6, 2011

See: http://www.itfs.de/en/programmes/supporting-programme/visual-music.html

Visit CVM Events page for up to date information on Visual Music Events
http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org/Events.htm

Center for Visual Music - VIMEO CHANNEL

The Center for Visual Music has set up a vimeo channel to show excerpts from Films from the Collection of Center for Visual Music archive. Many have been preserved by CVM and/or curated by CVM in programs seen worldwide.
http://vimeo.com/channels/124018

This channel is an excellent resource for those wishing to see excerpts from the CVM collection archive and is worth keeping a regular check as more films are added to the channel. It is just wonderful to see William Moritz discuss Oskar Fischinger's work, to see the Lumigraph Film (c. 1969) by Elfriede Fischinger (excerpt). This is a very valuable vimeo channel for fans and scholars of visual music.

Center for Visual Music - Vimeo Channel

www.centerforvisualmusic.org

Celebrating Elfriede Fischinger on her 100th Birthday: A Benefit Exhibition and Reception

Celebrating Elfriede Fischinger on her 100th Birthday

An Exhibition and Benefit Reception for CVM’s Fischinger Preservation and Conservation Project

Hosted by Center for Visual Music in collaboration with The Goethe-Institut Los Angeles and The Fischinger Trust

"Join us for a celebration of the life of Elfriede (1910-1999), widow of the avant-garde filmmaker and painter Oskar Fischinger. The evening features an Exhibition of selected photographs, artifacts and Paintings by Oskar Fischinger, a Wine Reception, and a Screening of Home Movies, Interviews and Videos of Elfriede. Highlights include Oskar’s first Stereo Painting (1949), The Lumigraph film (1970) by Elfriede, and unshot animation drawings by Oskar. Proceeds from the evening, which includes a silent auction, will benefit the work of Center for Visual Music, a nonprofit archive engaged in preserving and promoting the Fischinger films and legacy.

Elfriede Fischinger (1910-1999) devoted nearly her entire life to her husband Oskar Fischinger’s films, artwork and legacy. She began assisting on the films in his Berlin studio in the 1930s, and after they immigrated to Hollywood in 1936, helped support the family during lean times. Oskar worked briefly for Paramount, Disney (Fantasia), MGM and Orson Welles, but could never find sufficient support to produce many of the films he planned. After Oskar's death in 1967, Elfriede began collecting, cataloguing and preserving material related to the films and paintings, with assistance from Dr. William Moritz. She traveled widely lecturing with Oskar’s paintings and films at venues worldwide including the Montreal Expo of 1967, the Berlin Film Festival, The Museum of Modern Art (New York), Telluride, and the Venice Bienalle 1982, as well as major animation festivals like Ottawa and Zagreb. She received Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Royal Academy of the Netherlands, the International Animation Society ASIFA, and Women in Film."
Source: press release

September 23, 2010, 7 pm
Goethe-Institut, 5750 Wilshire Blvd. #100, Los Angeles, CA 90036
Tickets available at http://cvm.eventbrite.com/
Or through CVM directly via phone (MC or Visa).

Visit: http://cvm.eventbrite.com/ and http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org/Fischinger

Seeing Sound Symposium - Bath Spa University - UK

Practice-led Visual Music Research Symposium, Bath Spa University, 19/20th Sept 2009

"Bath Spa University’s Center for Musical Research hosts an informal two-day symposium exploring a broad range of multimedia work highlighting the relationship between sound and image. Areas such as visual music, abstract cinema, experimental animation, lumia, cymatics, live audiovisual performance and relevant installation work will be examined and explored."http://seeingsound.co.uk

The excellent programme organised by Dr Joe Hyde consisted of papers/presentations, performances and screenings. The mix of screenings, talks, papers and performances made this a really rich event and a wonderful opportunity to see and hear the work that is being created now in the area of practice-led Visual Music Research and to hear in detail how this is being done across many universities and various research activities in the UK, US, Ireland, Germany. Screenings came from a mix of historical works and cutting edge contemporary work.



Having just returned from the event, it was a great opportunity to see talks and work currently being created being shown by the researcher/artist/composer at the same time. For example, several papers presented were followed by screenings and performances.
The event also screened historical works and it screened a full and rich historical screening programme. Works from historical filmmakers and pioneers such as en extensive screening of Mary Ellen Bute's classic visual music films in the Mary Ellen Bute retrospective screening and an extensive screening of Oskar Fischinger's films in the Oskar Fischinger programme, were shown. The Mary Ellen Bute retrospective was also discussed in a paper by Sandra Naumann (Ludwig Boltzmann Institute Media.Art.Research, Linz, Austria) – Seeing Sound: Mary Ellen Bute’s Short Films. This paper really brought forward Mary Ellen Butes historical works as a really relevant and important historical figure in the area of Visual Music.
See the screenings programme at: http://www.seeingsound.co.uk/programme/screenings/

Links
http://blog.see-this-sound.at/
Jon Pigott - http://sonicmarbles.co.uk/
Keele University - Music & Music Technology - Audiovisual composition
Bret Battey
Mick Grierson
Lumisonic (developed by Dr Mick Grierson)
Zai Tang
Cymatics
Stephen Callear - Cirrus
llias Bergstrom
Onar3D - Maria Louiza - HD (vimeo)
Jaroslaw Kapuscinski
Jaroslaw Kapuscinski - Oils Dream
Theo Burt - Colour Projections
Jon Aveyard – Explorer and More
Kathy Hinde
Dr Tim Howle (University of Hull)
Electroacoustic Movies
Light Form Movement Sound - a research by Seppo Gruendler and Cordula Boesze completed by Sandra Naumann
http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org/Bute.htm
Jordan Belson
Larry Cuba
Jean Detheux
Adriano Abbado
Adriano Abbado – Kayuputih
Richard Lainhart
Richard Lainhart - Pneuma (Vimeo)
Bret Battey - Sinus Aestrum
Joseph Hyde (Seeing Sound Symposium Organiser)
Joseph Hyde – End Transmission (Vimeo)
Diego Garro - Performances
Steve Bird
Oskar Fischinger Trust and Archive
Nam June Paik and John Godfrey - Global Groove
Tim Skinner
Amanda Belantara - Ears are Dazzled, touched by sound
Nick Cope / Tim Howle – In Girum
Bonnie Mitchell / Elainie Lilios – 2B Textures
Karen Lauke – Copper Vibrations
Olga Mink/Scanner – trespassing (extract from Nature of Being) (Vimeo Link)
Olga Mink
Rajmil Fischman – ¿Te Acuerdas Hijo?
Andy Willy
Donnacha Dennehy (Music) Hugh Reynolds, Gerry O Brien (video) Performance by Crash Ensemble - Junk Box Fraud (vimeo)
Neil O Connor - The Glistening Bridge (youtube video) - (youtube recording of live performance)
Paul G Smyth - Red Film
Paul O Donoghue - Above the Thunder Clouds (Vimeo)
Fran Hartnett - Navigating the Pearl System (youtube) - Ogham Tone (youtube)
Shane McKenna (Vimeo)
Amanda Feery, Dream Machine (youtube)
Jane Cassidy, The Night after I Kicked It – youtube – (no audio)

Center for Visual Music to Preserve Fischinger Experiments

June 12, 2009 - Animation World Network Headline News - Top Stories

Center for Visual Music to Preserve Fischinger Experiments

http://news.awn.com/index.php?ltype=top&newsitem_no=28079

Center for Visual Music has received two new grants for preservation of very early Oskar Fischinger animation experiments.

The first grant is a prestigious Avant-Garde Masters Grant, to support the preservation of three nitrate reels of Fischinger's original 35mm experiments from his RAUMLICHTKUNST multiple projector cinema performances of the 1920s. The grant is funded by The Film Foundation and managed by The National Film Preservation Foundation. The Film Foundation is a nonprofit organization established in 1990 by Martin Scorsese, dedicated to protecting and preserving motion picture history. Joining Scorsese on the board are: Woody Allen, Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson, Francis Ford Coppola, Clint Eastwood, Curtis Hanson, Peter Jackson, Ang Lee, George Lucas, Alexander Payne, Robert Redford, and Steven Spielberg.

The second grant, received from The National Film Preservation Foundation, supports CVM's preservation of an early reel of Fischinger's 35mm nitrate black and white animation experiments from the late 1920s - early 1930s, which includes early Muratti cigarette commercial tests.

Center for Visual Music is a nonprofit archive dedicated to visual music, experimental animation and abstract cinema. CVM has received a series of film preservation grants and funding from public institutions and private sources over the past six years enabling its preservation of animated films by Fischinger, Jordan Belson, Jules Engel, Charles Dockum, John and James Whitney, Harry Smith, David Lebrun and others. CVM provided films for the 2005 Visual Music exhibition at MOCA LA, the 2003 Jules Engel Retrospective at Redcat Theatre, and many international festivals and museum exhibitions.

Join CVM and help with their preservation and promotion of experimental animation (and collect cool vintage Fischinger and other premiums!) 

www.centerforvisualmusic.org/Membership

Fischinger research pages: www.centerforvisualmusic.org/Fischinger

Preserving Visual Music - By Holly Willis for Blur + Sharpen

Preserving Visual Music - By Holly Willis - May 8, 2009

"After more than 70 years and the explosion of visual culture, the stunning animated films of Oskar Fischinger remain unparalleled. Fischinger, who emigrated to Los Angeles from Germany in 1936 and became one of the city's central figures in a burgeoning avant-garde filmmaking community, created dozens of dazzling visual explorations of sound...

This question is tackled head-on by Cindy Keefer, Director of LA's Center for Visual Music, which is dedicated to this particular genre of experimental film...

one of the Center's key objectives is preservation. In this context, CVM recently announced that it has received funds from the Avant-Garde Masters Grant (which is funded by The Film Foundation and managed by the National Film Preservation Foundation) to preserve three reels of Fischinger's original 35mm nitrate film experiments from his Raumlichtkunst multiple projector performances of the 1920s."
Extracts from the article by Holly Willis
Read the full article >>

Australian Cinémathèque - Visual Music - 2008

PAST EVENT

This is a past Visual Music event held in Queensland  Gallery of Modern Art in 2008.  The website documenting the Visual Music program screened is really useful as it provides an excellent overview of historical works in particular with a really useful list of their films, each filmmaker/artist is linked with a page overviewing their work and listing the films screened for the Visual Music program.  The website also provides information on the curators for the event - a really useful resource on Visual Music. (Author comment)

Visual Music - 28 March – 1 June 2008 

"The cinematic genre of Visual Music draws on elements of form, colour and rhythm in music and images to create visual symphonies. Working with abstraction and figuration, gesture, pitch, beat and palette, filmmakers have explored the dynamism of sight and sound synaesthesia - hearing colour and line, seeing rhythm and tone - through innovative techniques and aesthetics. The Australian Cinémathèque’s Visual Music program includes an extraordinary range of approaches to this genre, from the Silly Symphonies, early Walt Disney musical animations, to retrospective programs of visual music pioneers, selections of rarely screened classics and contemporary works...."

Works shown by:

Alexandre Alexeïeff and Claire Parker

Saul Bass

Jordan Belson

Stan Brakhage

Mary Ellen Bute

Oskar Fischinger

Len Lye

Light Play: Visual Music Pioneers

Norman McLaren

Rare Classics: Essential Visual Music

Soundfields from the Netherlands

Bärbel Neubauer

James and John Whitney

http://qag.qld.gov.au/cinematheque/past_programs/2008/visual_music

"The Australian Cinémathèque, located at the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art, presents retrospective and thematic film programs and exhibitions, exploring the important lines of influence between the moving image and other areas of visual culture, and showcasing the work of influential filmmakers and artists. Its mission is to collect, conserve, present and interpret film and screen culture."

Source: http://qag.qld.gov.au/cinematheque

Richard Baily

Richard Baily's incredible images and animations are in quicktime video format on the webstie Image Savant. The colours and forms that he has created are incredible. Richard provided animations for several hollywood films and sadly died in 2006.
Many of his images can be seen on the http://www.imagesavant.com/ website.

Link to page with video clips:
http://www.imagesavant.com/QT.html

The center for Visual Music provide an excellent memoriam to him and his work
http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org/Baily.htm

Jordan Belson - Five Essential Films

Center for Visual Music announces a new DVD release:

Jordan Belson - Five Essential Films

The DVD includes three classic films:
Allures (1961)
Samadhi (1967)
Light (1973)
A never-before released film: Fountain of Dreams (1984), and
Belson's latest film, Epilogue (2005)

Jordan Belson is one of the greatest artists of visual music. Belson creates lush vibrant experiences of exquisite color and dynamic abstract phenomena evoking sacred celestial experiences. ( William Moritz)

Curated by Jordan Belson, Produced by Center for Visual Music
NTSC, Region-Free, SD, 4:3, TRT approx 45 minutes
$25 private home use, $150 institutions (does not include public performance rights)
June 2007 release

Purchase at: http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org/JBDVD.htm

Belson's bio, bibliography, filmography, plus information re the films on the disc:
www.centerforvisualmusic.org/Belson

Article: Curating Abstract Visual Music

ARTICLE:
"On Curating Recent Abstract Visual Music"
by Jack Ox and Cindy Keefer
© Jack Ox and Cindy Keefer, 2006-08.
Authored for The New York Digital Salon's Abstract Visual Music catalog and website. Slight revision, 2008.