According to the notes for Xiang Pu Zhu’s short demo piece, all the shots here are computer generated. Some are more obvious than others but the combinations of liquid and particles are very impressive. The music is by Esther Garcia.
Category: {abstract cinema}
Abstract cinema
White Hole, a film by Toshio Matsumoto
Another short film by Matsumoto. This one was made in 1979, and seems to employ video effects, but the results are cosmic and psychedelic enough to have appeared ten years earlier. The electronic score is by Joji Yuasa. An entrancing 6-minute trip. Watch it here.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Atman, a film by Toshio Matsumoto
• Metastasis, a film by Toshio Matsumoto
Mothlight, a film by Stan Brakhage
One of the common methods of making a no-budget abstract film was to scratch or paint directly onto the film itself, a technique popularised by Len Lye in the 1930s. Mothlight (1963) by Stan Brakhage works a variation on the process by gluing broken moth wings, leaves and other bits of natural detritus to a length of film. It only runs for three minutes but it’s a classic piece of experimental cinema. As usual with Brakhage, the titles are hand-drawn, and the film itself is silent.
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The abstract cinema archive
Metastasis, a film by Toshio Matsumoto
Or Toshio’s Psychedelic Toilet. Toshio Matsumoto is known to cineastes for feature films such as Funeral Parade of Roses (which I’ve still not seen—sorry, Thom!), but he’s also responsible for a number of experimental films like this one. In Metastasis (1971) we watch a toilet bowl for 9 minutes while the colours and contrast shift continually. Matsumoto said (in a scrambled quote):
I used the Erekutoro Karapurosesu (Electro Color Processor), which is mainly used in the field of medicine and engineering, to create moving image textures Metastasis, I was interested in layering images of a simple object and its electronically processed abstraction. The electronic abstract image is manipulated in a certain rhythm, depicting an organic process.
This might be tedious if it didn’t also have a decent electronic score by Toshi Ichiyanagi. Watch it here.
Bridges-Go-Round, a film by Shirley Clarke
Bridges-Go-Round (1958) is a short but beguiling film that makes New York’s bridges seem like huge pieces of kinetic sculpture. The version linked here is also unusual for being two films in one: the film repeats itself with identical visuals but a different soundtrack. The first version is scored by a jazz piece from composer and producer Teo Macero, the second has electronic music by Louis and Bebe Barron that sounds very similar to their all-electronic score for Forbidden Planet (1956). When the music changes the film seems to change with it.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• NY, NY, a film by Francis Thompson