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.

'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

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 >>