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Astral Man

"An animated vision... a subliminal glance at man in light and space" S.V.

Fuses

An experimental short in which a couple engaged in lovemaking is superimposed over ocean and beach scenes.

Breathdeath

A surrealistic fantasy based on the 15th century woodcuts of the dance of the dead. A film experiment that deals with the photoreality and the surrealism of life. A collage-animation that cuts up photos and newsreel film and reassembles them, producing an image that is a mixture of unexplainable fact (Why is Harpo Marx playing a harp in the middle of a battlefield?) with inexplicable act (Why is there a battlefield?). It is a black comedy, a fantasy that mocks death ... a parabolic parable.

Poem Field Series

"Each film was constructed using Knowlton's BEFLIX computer language, which was based on FORTRAN. The films were programmed on a IBM 7094 computer. The films were created in black and white, with color added later by Brown and Olvey." --AT&T Archives and History Center

Notes on the Buffalo Conference: “Autobiography in American Independent Cinema”

During the 1970s I shot, helped to make, or commissioned about ten document films, mainly about film-makers. This film is one of them. It was made with Dan Ochiva, who acted as cameraman on about half of the footage. I shot the rest, and then edited the film. It is a record of a conference held at the State University of New York at Buffalo on March 22-25, 1973. Among the participants filmed were Gerald O'Grady (who organized the conference), Will Hindle, Stan Brakhage, Jonas Mekas, Robert Creeley, Bruce Baillie, Scott Bartlett, Hollis Frampton, Ken Jacobs, Ed Pincus, Stan Vanderbeek, Ed Emshwiller, Sally Dixon, James Cox. This footage will eventually become part of my film PEOPLE, PLACES, THE 1970S. –R. H.

Visual Velocity: The Work of Stan VanDerBeek

Visual Velocity is a tribute to the pioneering work of Stan VanDerBeek. VanDerBeek was an experimental filmmaker, artist, animator, and media visionary. Produced by David Donnelly, the work originally aired on PBS stations' THE TERRITORY, the longest running public television showcase of independent film/video in the country.

Home Movies 1971-81

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

Who Ho Rays No. 1

"The shapes of sound filmed from a computer system that reproduces analog patterns from sounds. This pioneer work in animated computer mandalas is a lyrical, abstract song with analog rhythms."

Fluids

16mm color work by Stan Vanderbeek that takes his work away from the cutups and the commentary and lands him in the psychedelic and abstract. Opticals, repetitions, camera moves and zooms are what make up the bulk of this exploration into fluids. The results bridge that realm between hangout art piece and intersteller stoner trip.

The Computer Generation

Stan VanDerBeek, experimental filmmaker at work with friend and computer expert Wade Shaw, at the sophisticated new (1972) computer at MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies, and discussing the inevitable interaction of computers with artistic creativity. Clips from several VanDerBeek films.

Mirrored Reason

A Kafka-inspired tale, Mirrored Reason tells the story of a woman who is haunted and eventually replaced by her double.

Newsreel of Dreams 1 & 2

Dream matrix, history written in lightning image, memory and the TV syntax, images flowing and fused together to other images and electronic tapestry of images half seen, sought for, seeking man's dreams, movies as dreams, history as media. "The artist will tell you it is as much a process he is interested in ... as a result. Art is a process – life is a process – are they the same process? So many of the artists became unhappy about this eternal, unyielding quality in their art, and they began to wish their work were more like shoes, more temporary, more human, more able to admit of the possibility of change. The fixed, finished work began to be supplemented by the idea of work as a process, constantly becoming something else, tentative, allowing more than one interpretation." – Dick Higgins

The Human Face Is a Monument

Camera animation over stills, “a portrait study of mankind, beginning with an infant and growing up to old age and death... using still pictures from the collection of ‘magnum photos on the range of expression and moods of people from all over the world, it reflects the human condition."

Ad Infinitum

Poem Field No. 7

"Calligraphic computer animation of the enigmatic poem 'There is no way to peace- Peace is the way.' Black and white animation is colored by Brown/ Olvey. This film with soundtrack by John Cage is a lyric accidental stylization of christian myth/crosses. The patterns are written by random programs on a computer with help by Ken Knowlton." S.V.

Black and White, Day and Night

A 'drawn' film, with images that are constantly changing, drawings of landscapes that keep escaping, traces of faces, everything is almost what it is but never stays that way. The soundtrack punches out a wild monotone of dirty, nonsense limericks to the accompaniment of hand-drawn images related only in their complementary rhythm.