30/4/13 Class Notes on Experimental Subgenres

Abstract Film

• Non representational forms (does not depict the physical appearance of things)
• Instead focuses on basic materials of the film medium
• Played greater attention to graphic form and rhythmic editing
• Often considered as "filmmaking painting with motion"

• non-narrative visual/sound experiences with no story and no acting. Rely on the unique qualities of motion, rhythm, light and composition inherent in the technical medium of cinema to create emotional experiences.

"The drama of vision, a vision that implies a belief that the first priority is to see and record, the second to structure and interpret." -David Curtis

   Stan Brakhage

Sought to liberate human perception from "goal seeking" in favour of "open, receptive seeing"'

Analyzing "Black Ice"

What I saw/Description

• Flash of radiant colours on a completely black background
• Illusion of movement
• Inconstant tempo, accelerating and dying down at times
• Colours mainly blue, red and white (ice?), appears like the splash of paint on a canvas

Interpretation/Associations

• Spirituality
• Stream of consciousness
• Death

Compilation Films

• Reuses pre-existing film footage in a new context to generate new idea
• Raises the question of what art is; Marcel Duchamp's response of any type and form of art as entirely subjective, and that art is what we decide for it to be.

Contemporary Avant Garde Films

 led by influential video artist Bill Viola whose artistic expression includes the use of electric, sound and image technology.