Five Film Exercises: Film 4

John Whitney's pioneering work of computer animation, Arabesque, from 1975. This flowing, abstract short film is a wonder to behold, a work of art. Like many other computer graphics pioneers, this film suggests roots in psychedelics and spiritual quests as much as engineering and mathematics. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2007.

A piece of abstract cinema by John Whitney. A series squares follow a 3-dimensional track, each one with a slight delay after the other.

An abstract computer-generated animation set to music by Terry Riley.

Collection of Computer Graphic effects.

An experimental short film by John Whitney Sr. which combines animated shapes and colors; Computer graphics as dynamic, swirling art. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2014.

Early 'visual music' film by John Whitney. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 1999.

Begins with a three beat announcement drawn out in time which thereafter serves as a figure to divide the four sections. Each return of this figure is more condensed, and finally used in reverse to conclude the film. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2004.

Moon Drum offers an impressionistic evocation of the mood, color and feel of native American art created by computer graphics.

Opens with a short canonical statement of a theme upon which the entire film is constructed. The canon is repeated in contrasting variations by means of color. A second section poses the same image in deep film space. The image unfolds itself repeatedly, leaving the receding image to continue on smaller and smaller. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2005.

A Personal Search For the Complementarity of Music and Visual Art (1992) uses the concept of complementarity to make sense of the confusion that existed between fine art and technology in the late 20th century.

Home movies shot on Super 8mm by W+B Hein over 10 years.