Re: [Frameworks] documentary conscience

[David Baker]

In An Anagram of Ideas, On Art, Form And Film 
,
 Maya Deren contrasts
"wholes which are the sum total of parts” 
with "an 'emergent whole’… in which the parts are so dynamically related as to 
produce 
something new which is unpredictable from a knowledge of the parts”.
She states, 
"The effort of the artist is towards the creation of a logic in which two and 
two may make five, or, preferably fifteen;
when this is achieved, two can no longer be understood as simply two”.

The Ito’s Divine Horsemen adds up.
I love the film.
I see it as an ethnographic frame or portal
as well as an intimation of an imperiled unknown quantity,
a visionary realm whose measure has yet to be taken,
held captive in old coffee cans.

In the author’s preface to Divine Horsemen, 
Maya writes,
"I had begun as an artist, as one who would manipulate the elements of a reality
into a work of art in the image of my creative integrity;
I end by recording, as humbly and accurately as I can
the logics of a reality which had forced me to recognize its integrity,
and to abandon my manipulations.”

I write only to alert this community to the existence
of something extraordinary in the realm of cinema
a capacitor with polyvalent vectors and super-natural authority.
The Unedited Haitian Footage must be considered as a discrete work of art.
I expect it will reveal itself on its own terms and in its own time.

(Pip thank you for the information regarding Tavia. I was unaware of her 
involvement.)


> On Aug 28, 2020, at 8:13 AM, Bernard Roddy  wrote:
> 
> When Chrissie Iles posted, it struck me as a diminution of the cause one 
> might want to identify with, say a concern for Black film artists. But what 
> David at Lake Ivan posted restores the question of interest, as I would like 
> to see it. That question has to do with a conscience often belonging to 
> documentary makers, and particularly white makers of an experimental bent. 
> The narrative about a screening of a Deren film in Brooklyn reminds me of the 
> significance of Edward Curtis photographs of Native Americans for me. I 
> arrived in Oklahoma to teach film with a critical reading of Curtis' work, 
> and it was there that I met an historian who devoted his career to Native 
> American art (modern art, in particular). He said in passing once that he 
> liked Curtis' photographs, and suddenly the colonial critique I would have 
> found very natural no longer sailed of its own momentum. I love these 
> questions, and actually found them addressed in Heidegger's Being and Time. 
> It is European, and, it seems to me, it's not particularly resolved by 
> casting our gaze at black bodies or advancing the careers of others. Here too 
> I would raise the distinction between scholar and artist. What is an artist 
> under these circumstances but someone prepared for a kind of initiation, in 
> search of such enlightening?
> 
> 
> Bernie
> ___
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Re: [Frameworks] Deleuze and Husserl

[David Baker]

Kerstin thank you so much for this information.
English text here: The Haitian Rushes 
<http://johannjacobs.com/en/formate/the-haitian-rushes-by-maya-deren/>.
There may be a trip to Zurich in my future
unless the Whitney can be cajoled
into giving space to Maya’s voodoo voice.


> On Aug 26, 2020, at 3:18 AM, Kerstin Schroedinger  wrote:
> 
> as far as i know 
> there is a project to do with the Jacobs Museum / Foundation in Zurich 
> Switzerland
> to preserve the ‘Haitian Rushes’
> there was an exhibition there in 2016
> https://johannjacobs.com/de/formate/maya-deren-die-haitian-rushes/ 
> <https://johannjacobs.com/de/formate/maya-deren-die-haitian-rushes/>
> 
> best
> 
> Kerstin Schroedinger
> schroedinger.blackblogs.org <http://schroedinger.blackblogs.org/>
> +49 179 473 2258
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> On 26. Aug 2020, at 2:27 AM, David Baker > <mailto:dbak...@hvc.rr.com>> wrote:
>> 
>> Chrissie,
>> 
>> If you would allow  the discussion to expand to Black Lives Matter 
>> a film comes to mind I have only seen in an excerpt at Anthology on Jan. 26, 
>> 2010  <https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/28/arts/dance/28lost.html>
>> as part of a program presented by Danspace Project,
>> Maya Deren’s Unedited Haiti Footage.
>> 
>> When I saw this work I was overwhelmed by its consequence.
>> I was very familiar with the Ito/Winett edit of this material, 
>> Divine Horsemen: The LIving Gods Of Haiti (1954).
>> However the experience I had with the fragment of Unedited Haiti Footage was 
>> very different,
>> an order of cinematic magnitude I have never forgotten and always wished 
>> to see in its entirety.
>> 
>> Immediately after the program I brought my ardor 
>> to this forum. 
>> Pip lent important information,
>> 
>>> We screened the totality of Maya Deren's Haiti Footage on April 4th, 2004 
>>> at 4pm in the Auditorium du Louvre in Paris. The screening was organized in 
>>> parternship with Anthology in the hopes of raising money to preserve the 
>>> footage. Jonas Mekas dedicated the screening to Jean Rouch.
>>> 
>>> What was actually screened was 240 minutes of silent 16mm footage, the 
>>> complete unique print, the first and only time it has been screened in 
>>> Europe. The auditorium was full, so over 400 people saw this footage that 
>>> day. Nobody came forward with funds to preserve it.
>>> 
>>> The footage is beautiful. It should be preserved - a new internegative 
>>> could be struck for a few thousand dollars and a print could circulate. 
>>> Deren never touched the footage or edited it our of allegiance to the 
>>> voudoun gods.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Vociferous discussion ensued.
>> 
>> Jonas Mekas in a rare appearance by way of Andy Lampert sent this:
>> 
>> "Andy, please let all well-meaning but little informed enthusiasts know that 
>> the work on preserving HAITI footage has been going for several years now 
>> with Martina Kudlacek and myself in charge of  it. Martina has put a lot of 
>> work into it, and has prepared a detailed description of materials , a plan 
>> for how to go about the preservation work, and a budget for doing that work 
>> which in 2005 was c.70,000 but I figure now it will be over $100,000.  
>> Martina is returning back to New York to continue the work this March, so it 
>> will be at that time that we'll have an updated budget and updated plan how 
>> to go about it (changing technologies have opened other choices and 
>> possibilities). In 2005 all my efforts to find suport for sponsoring the 
>> project ended on dead ears. It looks like it took an earthquaque and 
>> destruction of half of Haiti, to open some ears and eyes. No guarantee that 
>> this will also open the checkbooks, but all of you, excited well meaning  
>> people should know that I have never given up on any of the projects that I 
>> worked on, you should know that much about me by now. Maya's HAITI film will 
>> be preserved and made available to all. And so will be our LIbrary wing 
>> built too. On the completion of Anthology, our Cinema Cathedral, I have been 
>> working for thirty years. On completion of Maya's HAITI I have been working 
>> only for five years. Both cathedrals will be completed, I promise you that.  
>> But I want you to know that talking, no matter how enthusiastic and 
>> well--meaning, has not built any cathedrals yet. I need your concrete, in 
>> this case your money, to complete   the two cathedrals.   
>> Jonas"
>> 
>> Ten years later

Re: [Frameworks] Deleuze and Husserl

[David Baker]

Chrissie,

If you would allow  the discussion to expand to Black Lives Matter 
a film comes to mind I have only seen in an excerpt at Anthology on Jan. 26, 
2010  
as part of a program presented by Danspace Project,
Maya Deren’s Unedited Haiti Footage.

When I saw this work I was overwhelmed by its consequence.
I was very familiar with the Ito/Winett edit of this material, 
Divine Horsemen: The LIving Gods Of Haiti (1954).
However the experience I had with the fragment of Unedited Haiti Footage was 
very different,
an order of cinematic magnitude I have never forgotten and always wished 
to see in its entirety.

Immediately after the program I brought my ardor 
to this forum. 
Pip lent important information,

> We screened the totality of Maya Deren's Haiti Footage on April 4th, 2004 at 
> 4pm in the Auditorium du Louvre in Paris. The screening was organized in 
> parternship with Anthology in the hopes of raising money to preserve the 
> footage. Jonas Mekas dedicated the screening to Jean Rouch.
> 
> What was actually screened was 240 minutes of silent 16mm footage, the 
> complete unique print, the first and only time it has been screened in 
> Europe. The auditorium was full, so over 400 people saw this footage that 
> day. Nobody came forward with funds to preserve it.
> 
> The footage is beautiful. It should be preserved - a new internegative could 
> be struck for a few thousand dollars and a print could circulate. Deren never 
> touched the footage or edited it our of allegiance to the voudoun gods.



Vociferous discussion ensued.

Jonas Mekas in a rare appearance by way of Andy Lampert sent this:

"Andy, please let all well-meaning but little informed enthusiasts know that 
the work on preserving HAITI footage has been going for several years now with 
Martina Kudlacek and myself in charge of  it. Martina has put a lot of work 
into it, and has prepared a detailed description of materials , a plan for how 
to go about the preservation work, and a budget for doing that work which in 
2005 was c.70,000 but I figure now it will be over $100,000.  Martina is 
returning back to New York to continue the work this March, so it will be at 
that time that we'll have an updated budget and updated plan how to go about it 
(changing technologies have opened other choices and possibilities). In 2005 
all my efforts to find suport for sponsoring the project ended on dead ears. It 
looks like it took an earthquaque and destruction of half of Haiti, to open 
some ears and eyes. No guarantee that this will also open the checkbooks, but 
all of you, excited well meaning  people should know that I have never given up 
on any of the projects that I worked on, you should know that much about me by 
now. Maya's HAITI film will be preserved and made available to all. And so will 
be our LIbrary wing built too. On the completion of Anthology, our Cinema 
Cathedral, I have been working for thirty years. On completion of Maya's HAITI 
I have been working only for five years. Both cathedrals will be completed, I 
promise you that.  But I want you to know that talking, no matter how 
enthusiastic and well--meaning, has not built any cathedrals yet. I need your 
concrete, in this case your money, to complete   the two cathedrals.   
Jonas"

Ten years later I am wondering how this ineffable work on such an extraordinary 
subject by an auteur as consequential as Maya Deren is still invisible, 
endangered, unknown.

Your esteemed thoughts would be most appreciated.

David

PS Hannah Frank’s Frame By Frame matters to me too.


> On Aug 25, 2020, at 5:35 PM, Chrissie Iles, Curatorial 
>  wrote:
> 
> Most importantly, what are we all doing to support Black filmmakers and 
> thinkers, and expand the discussion beyond the Eurocentric model to take on 
> the larger, more inclusive post colonial thinking that is now so urgent. 
> We’re in the middle of the biggest uprising in American history, and that 
> changes everything and honestly blows all this out of the water in terms of 
> what we need to be thinking about now. 
> Chrissie 
> 
>> On Aug 25, 2020, at 1:48 PM, Michael Betancourt 
>>  wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> Hi Bernie,
>> 
>> Thank you for reminding me why I don’t get involved in these discussions. 
>> Not in decades ... but animation and avant-garde film is a topic that is of 
>> personal interest. So, let me begin by saying that there is no emotion in 
>> this response I’m writing. I'm not angry, upset or anything except (perhaps) 
>> a bit disappointed. But I’d done with this discussion since I recognize a 
>> pattern of "gas lighting." You can claim I'm being over sensitive, that's 
>> fine. I'm not interested. This is not the start of a flame or me walking 
>> away in a "huff" because you're "right" (I don't think you are, and I'm 
>> not), but simply my giving up on the discussion entirely as I have more 
>> important and useful to me ways to spend what time I have; 

[Frameworks] Bruce Baillie 10-20-73

[David Baker]

Bruce Baillie at Millennium Film Workshop 10-20-73

Audio only

( recorded by Bob Parent )

https://vimeo.com/406686588 


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Re: [Frameworks] Jonas Mekas vs. Yalkut, Vogel, Guttenplan, Cooper and Bienstock

[David Baker]

Chrissie,

I would surmise the panel convened 
at the WBAI Studios at 359 East 62nd St., NY, NY
based on information I found here, 
https://archive.org/stream/wbaifolio143wbairich/wbaifolio143wbairich_djvu.txt 
<https://archive.org/stream/wbaifolio143wbairich/wbaifolio143wbairich_djvu.txt>
where the Critics’ Forum discussion is listed on day 12
with host Jud Yalcut (sic).

David


> On Jul 30, 2019, at 1:30 PM, Chrissie Iles, Curatorial 
>  wrote:
> 
> Thank you for sharing this important archival recording, David. Where did the 
> panel take place?
>  
> From: FrameWorks  <mailto:frameworks-boun...@jonasmekasfilms.com>> On Behalf Of David Baker
> Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2019 11:22 AM
> To: Experimental Film Discussion List  <mailto:Frameworks@jonasmekasfilms.com>>
> Subject: [Frameworks] Jonas Mekas vs. Yalkut, Vogel, Guttenplan, Cooper and 
> Bienstock
>  
> As an unsolicited contribution to the ongoing exhibition at Microscope 
> Gallery,
> “Scrapbook (or, Why Can’t We Live Together)”
> here is a three part historic radio broadcast circa 1972-73
> uploaded to Vimeo which I would like to share with fellow Frameworkers
> who might find it of interest.
>  
> Part 1 is a discussion moderated by Jud Yalkut
> with panelists David Bienstock (curator at the Whitney Museum), Karen Cooper
> (director of Film Forum), Howard Guttenplan (director of Millennium Film 
> Workshop),
> and Amos Vogel (founder of Cinema 16 and the NY Film Festival) 
> speaking on the topic “The Problems Of Exhibiting 16mm Film in New York City.”
>  
> Part 2 continuing into Part 3, Jonas Mekas joins the group to respond to 
> concerns they have
> regarding his writing at The Village Voice.
>  
>  
> Part 1 - 45:51 (a fragment, ending abruptly) 12/10/72
>  
> https://vimeo.com/350865054 <https://vimeo.com/350865054>
>  
> Part 2 - 46:27 3/12/73
>  
> https://vimeo.com/350880668 <https://vimeo.com/350880668>
>  
> Part 3 - 38:42 (a continuation from Part 2)
>  
> https://vimeo.com/350888213 
> <https://vimeo.com/350888213>___
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> <https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks>
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[Frameworks] Jonas Mekas vs. Yalkut, Vogel, Guttenplan, Cooper and Bienstock

[David Baker]

As an unsolicited contribution to the ongoing exhibition at Microscope Gallery,
“Scrapbook (or, Why Can’t We Live Together)”
here is a three part historic radio broadcast circa 1972-73
uploaded to Vimeo which I would like to share with fellow Frameworkers
who might find it of interest.

Part 1 is a discussion moderated by Jud Yalkut
with panelists David Bienstock (curator at the Whitney Museum), Karen Cooper
(director of Film Forum), Howard Guttenplan (director of Millennium Film 
Workshop),
and Amos Vogel (founder of Cinema 16 and the NY Film Festival) 
speaking on the topic “The Problems Of Exhibiting 16mm Film in New York City.”

Part 2 continuing into Part 3, Jonas Mekas joins the group to respond to 
concerns they have
regarding his writing at The Village Voice.


Part 1 - 45:51 (a fragment, ending abruptly) 12/10/72

https://vimeo.com/350865054 

Part 2 - 46:27 3/12/73

https://vimeo.com/350880668 

Part 3 - 38:42 (a continuation from Part 2)

https://vimeo.com/350888213 ___
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Re: [Frameworks] 7360 Sukiyaki

[David Baker]

Dr. Walley,

I can not help with regard to the question, where did 7360 Sukiyaki premier?
However I have uploaded to Vimeo an audio recording of Tony's projection / 
performance
at Millennium Film Workshop on 6-15-74 
which may be of interest to you, your research associate or others on this list.

https://vimeo.com/257530075 

This recording includes:

 Film Feedback

  Projection of film that has been subjected to hammering, reassembled.

  Projection of films subjected to electrocution
  
  Projection of curried film.
  ( Curry by Marian Zazeela)

  Projection of creoled film stock

 7360 Deep Fried - to be looked at sans projection

 Discussion of film pickling, film as a culinary ingredient
 “film material behaves more or less like onions”

7360 Sukiyaki

Q & A

Power to the people,

David


> On Feb 26, 2018, at 10:54 AM, Jonathan Walley  wrote:
> 
> Thank you, d.olivier, for that perspective. I remember Tony telling me 
> something similar about cost, specifically that he had a notion of scale 
> where the cooked, etc. films could be made for the cost of a lunch. 
> 
> You’re right about the missing scholarship on Tony’s video and public access 
> work. A million years ago I did a very little bit of work on it, which was 
> included in my dissertation but never made it any further. 
> 
> The only works I know of during this period that could genuinely be 
> characterized as being “performances about projection” are Sukiyaki, Bowed 
> Film, and Film Feedback (of course, it depends upon how elastic Tony’s 
> definition of “performance” is, but still…). So I’m even more (reasonably) 
> confident that Sukiyaki began its life at Antioch. [Interesting side note, 
> the “premiere” date Tony listed for Sukiyaki in the MFJ article - 12/17/73 - 
> was the same day that Antioch announced the firing of a couple dozen teaching 
> faculty because the college was in dire financial straits. I have to guess 
> that this included Tony, who moved on to Binghamton the following spring.] 
> 
> Thanks again - if anyone else has clues for the great 7360 Sukiyaki 
> investigation, chime in. 
> 
> Best,
> JW
> 
> Dr. Jonathan Walley
> Associate Professor and Chair
> Department of Cinema
> Denison University
> wall...@denison.edu 
>> On Feb 24, 2018, at 6:01 PM, d. olivier delrieu-schulze 
>> > wrote:
>> 
>> Tony talked about doing a performance of “film projection” at Antioch.  He 
>> also said that his pickled films and cooked films were a response to being 
>> criticized by other makers at Antioch.  Primarily for making work that 
>> wasn’t directly engaging with social justice issues.  That film was 
>> expensive and to make work that didn’t directly address isssues like poverty 
>> was irresponsible.
>> 
>> So.  In t0ny’s positively spiteful way he said “fine I’ll just use scraps of 
>> film and pickle them! That costs almost nothing!”
>> 
>> It’s not a surprise that there isn’t a clear record as Antioch went through 
>> a lot of changes since then.
>> 
>> This incidence along with the video activism/public access work, I think, 
>> shows a significant shift of tony’s work pre/during/post Antioch.  This is 
>> glaringly absent from most of the scholarship about Tony’s work.
>> 
>> -d.olivier 
>> 
>> On Sat, Feb 24, 2018 at 1:17 PM Jonathan Walley > > wrote:
>> Hello Frameworkers,
>> 
>> I have a question about Tony Conrad’s performance 7360 Sukiyaki, which I’m 
>> asking on behalf of another researcher. It’s a simple question, really, but 
>> has become quite the little puzzle. 
>> 
>> The question is where the work was “premiered.” In an essay he wrote for MFJ 
>> called “Is This Penny Ante or a High Stakes Game?”, Tony listed three 
>> performance dates for the work: December 17, 1973, April 27, 1974, and June 
>> 15, 1974. The latter two dates I have been able to nail down: The Walker Art 
>> Center and the Millennium. That leaves the December 17, ’73 date, apparently 
>> the premiere. My educated guess is that this took place at Antioch, which 
>> Tony was teaching at the time (he left shortly after to teach at Binghamton, 
>> then, of course, SUNY Buffalo). The researcher I’ve been talking to has not 
>> been able to find anything about a performance at Antioch (my guess is that 
>> it was a very low-key affair, possibly connected with a class, as was Film 
>> Feedback); she is trying to eliminate Anthology or any other NY venue as a 
>> possible site of the premiere. She’s even contacted the archivist at Antioch 
>> and gotten more-or-less a non-responsive response. 
>> 
>> Any ideas? I know it’s a lot of verbiage for what seems like a tiny 
>> question, but since I’ve spent a few days figuring out the other dates and 
>> sort of mapping Tony’s travels between 1972 and 1975, I’ve developed an 
>> obsession with answering 

[Frameworks] Stoneman Douglas

[David Baker]

Love and respect to the students and teachers of Stoneman Douglas High School!


"I was dreaming in my dreaming
Of an aspect bright and fair
And my sleeping, it was broken
But my dream, it lingered near

In the form of shining valleys
Where the pure air recognized
And my senses newly opened
I awakened to the cry

That the people have the power
To redeem the work of fools
Upon the meek the graces shower
It's decreed: the people rule"___
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Re: [Frameworks] Noteworthy Publications This Year?

[David Baker]

rs often change due to who is/was sleeping  
with who.


The other question I have is while we might hope "that the men and  
women in the Cinema Department were adults, equal to their teachers  
as human beings,” in point of fact the faculty had a lot more power:  
giving grades, privileges, scholarships and other financial aid,  
recommendation letters, etc.  That power differential is exactly  
what is at stake in the current flurry of activity in the US around  
issues of sexual relations, sexual assault, discimination, and so  
forth in higher education referencing Title iX in particular.   
Certainly since the early 1960s, women artists have had quite a lot  
to say about "the expectation that they were equals sexually as well  
as politically.”  And most of it doesn’t flatter men with power.


(People outside the US who aren’t familiar with the complications of  
Title IX and want to know more could start with two essays by Laura  
Kipnis : "Sexual Paranoia Strikes Academe," and “My Title IX  
Inquisition.”  (@laurakipnis.com)


Chuck

On Jan 2, 2016, at 5:19 AM, sc...@financialcleansing.com wrote:


Dear Chuck et al,

The late-Sixties-early-Seventies were (of course) an unusual and  
complex moment. From our perspective now, some of what went on back  
then (at Binghamton and in other places--think of the legendary  
nude faculty-student get-together at the San Francisco Art  
Institute!) can seem outrageous--and perhaps to some extent was  
outrageous, as certain "Voices" in the "Weave" of Binghamton  
Babylon make evident.


But it is also true that that generation of students certainly saw  
themselves as adults and expected to be taken seriously as adults.  
As various other "Voices" make clear, this included the expectation  
that they were equals sexually as well as politically. Even Nixon  
understood that if 18-and 19-year old young men were expected to  
put their lives in jeopardy in Vietnam--or put their freedom in  
jeopardy by refusing to serve in the military--then, 18-19-20-year  
olds should be able to drink a beer, and by extension function as  
full and equal adults in other ways as well.


The assumption that the men and women in the Cinema Department were  
adults, equal to their teachers as human beings (if not yet as  
accomplished intellectuals or artists), seems fully a part of the  
energy of that department at that moment and part of what allowed  
the Cinema Department to have powerful long-range effects.


Only one person refused to be interviewed for Binghamton Babylon. I  
was unable to track down a number of other folks whose input I had  
hoped for.


Scott



 Original Message 
Subject: Re: [Frameworks] Noteworthy Publications This Year?
From: Chuck Kleinhans <chuck...@northwestern.edu>
Date: Wed, December 30, 2015 12:41 pm
To: Experimental Film Discussion List  
<frameworks@jonasmekasfilms.com>



On Dec 29, 2015, at 6:15 PM, David Baker <dbak...@hvc.rr.com> wrote:


Scott MacDonald's revelatory,
BINGHAMTON BABYLON: VOICES FROM THE CINEMA DEPARTMENT 1967-1977



Among the “revelations” are many references to (male) faculty  
having sexual encounters with (usually female) students, and other  
hanky-panky, in addition to drug and alcohol use/abuse.  It seems  
to me this is the first real discussion of these sorts of events in  
the experimental film world. (well, historians have sometimes  
touched on this for the distant past, but most of the people here  
are still around).


I wonder how both people of that generation and the Millennial  
generation take these details.  A hidden history? More of the same- 
old, same-old?  Really dangerous under Title IX today (US law  
giving women equal access to education)?


MacDonald mentions that a fair number of people did not want to be  
interviewed, and there are very few women who are quoted.   
Reluctant to drag up old baggage?


It’s interesting that for all the “taboo breaking” poses of the  
avant garde, sexual politics of personal relations  within the  
community are seldom discussed (with an exception for some gay  
filmmakers).



Chuck Kleinhans




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Chuck Kleinhans
chuck...@northwestern.edu




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Re: [Frameworks] Noteworthy Publications This Year?

[David Baker]

Scott MacDonald's revelatory,
BINGHAMTON BABYLON: VOICES FROM THE CINEMA DEPARTMENT 1967-1977

PAPER AIRPLANES: The Collections of Harry Smith Catalogue Raisonne Vol I

STRING FIGURES: The Collections of Harry Smith Catalogue Raisonne ,  
Vol. II


Editors- John Klacsmann
   Andrew Lampert

CHROMATIC ALGORITHMS: SYNTHETIC COLOR, COMPUTER ART, and AESTHETICS  
AFTER CODE


- Carolyn L. Kane
("Life is won by wresting colors from the past."
-Gilles Deleuze )

FANTASIA OF COLOR IN EARLY CINEMA
- Tom Gunning et al.

THE EXPERIENCE MACHINE: STAN VANDERBEEK'S MOVIE-DROME
AND EXPANDED CINEMA
-Gloria Sutton

Jane (Brakhage) Wodening's book:
BRAKHAGE'S CHILDHOOD

(Haven't read this yet but I certainly intend to.
Recommended by someone
whose opinion
I hold in the highest regard.)


On Dec 29, 2015, at 12:01 PM, Michael Betancourt wrote:

What were the noteworthy publications this year? My reading pile has  
gotten smaller...


Michael Betancourt
Savannah, GA USA


michaelbetancourt.com
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Re: [Frameworks] All about the Bolex

[David Baker]

I remember the great photographer and filmmaker Danny Lyon
saying he shared a film camera with Robert Frank.
If it was a Bolex they held in common,
then Lyon as raconteur ( as well as in oeuvre)
would be one of the few who might rival Robert Frank.

On Dec 29, 2015, at 7:05 AM, alexan...@bolex.net wrote:


Dear Frameworkers,

For nearly five years, I have been working on a documentary about  
the swiss precision industry that produced the Bolex’s, Kern lenses  
and the Nagra. I have already met over 30 former employee of theses  
companies as well as filmmakers.


You can watch a trailer featuring Otello Diotallevi who is the last  
Bolex employee by clicking the link below:


https://vimeo.com/150185992

I am trying to find people that used to visit the Paillard Showroom  
at 265 Madison Avenue in New-York.They were also located in 100  
Avenue of the America and later in Linden, New-Jersey. If any of you  
have some stories about it, I would be very interested to hear it  
(Images Below). I will probably be in New-York in January.


I am also copying an article from the Bolex Reporter entitled « The  
New American Cinema Group ».The article was written in 1966 by Fred  
W. Mc Darrah. I was very surprised to see Robert Frank in the  
article, I always thought he was filming with an arriflex at least  
from the film « Pull my daisy ». If I remember correctly, Robert  
Beavers the partner of Gregory Markopoulos told me that Paillard  
lent some cameras to the filmmakers in exchange of the article. Some  
of them never came back.


If any of you could help me contact Mr Mekas I would appreciate it  
very much, I have been trying to contact him for three years without  
success.


There is a film on the inventor of the first Bolex's ( http://www.jacquesbolseyproject.com/index.html 
 ) that should be released next year and a book was released in  
French two years ago ( http://www.editions-thiele.com/ ). Lots of  
interesting things about the Bolex history will be released in a  
near future.


Feel free to contact me if you have any interesting stories about  
the Bolex.


Happy filmmaking!
Alexandre Favre









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Re: [Frameworks] Millennium Film Workshop

[David Baker]

Your the boss Elizabeth.
No poetry intended just the flawed way I write.
Thanks for you help,
lesson learned.

One thing though, please be certain I need no good will from you
nor was I trying to garner any from anyone else.
I just was trying to find a form that fit.
You win some you lose some.

DB




On Oct 2, 2015, at 7:42 PM, Elizabeth McMahon wrote:


You had already said more than plenty.

Your cryptic "poem" is such a distraction for a general listserv.  
Send stuff like this to the intended party and leave the public out  
of it. It is just embarrassing, and garners you no good will.


Elizabeth McMahon

On Fri, Oct 2, 2015 at 7:26 PM, David Baker <dbak...@hvc.rr.com>  
wrote:

Jay,

Rare flowers that germinated in the dark
in that moldy old  place
will not come again.
We will never be as free to play with all the potentialities
of projected light as we were there then.
Still it must go on.

"Darkness  cannot drive out darkness,
only light can do that."

-Martin Luther KIng Jr.

I will say no more on the subject.

David


On Oct 2, 2015, at 11:54 AM, Jay Hudson wrote:


To Sasha,

Your words are inappropriate, offensive, and abusive.  I will not  
tolerate it, and I demand that it stop.  If this type of conduct is  
against framework's terms of use, I ask Pip to remove Sasha from  
the list if this continues.  I have moved on and hold animosity  
towards no one.  There was no justification to bring me into it.


To David,

I think it is better to lower the tone on this because I think you  
are speaking from the heart and with good intentions.  It is better  
if you consider that the situation with the Millennium followed a  
very common and recognizable patterns in non-profits.  I made my  
decisions based on extensive research and speaking with non-profit  
experts, attorneys, and other professionals.  Every person that I  
spoke with was extremely direct and unambiguous in saying that  
there was a serious problem that had to be addressed immediately.   
A few even said that there was no point in trying to correct it.  I  
did what I thought was best and responsible.


Those of use working at MFW inherited a situation where the  
organization was more than $40K in debt with the landlord. Howard  
basically dropped out of sight when he got sick and I had to step  
in to put out fires with the landlord.   When the archive thing was  
going on, MFW was trying to negotiate a new lease.  We were being  
served with papers.  Almost everything in the way that MFW  
functioned was so dependent on one individual, that there were  
almost no established patterns to run things.  Naturally when he  
was not doing so, things fall apart.  MFW was failing what is  
called the risk assessment test, where an organization can not  
function without a certain individual.  This is unhealthy to an  
organization, plus it makes it much more difficult to get funding.


I prefer that this be the last of this thread of this  
communication.  What happened, happened.  These issues have no  
pertinence to today's events.  There is no sense in unproductively  
dwelling on events that are unresolvable.  No one can be completely  
objective in this.


It is much better to think about the current MFW for what it is.   
Times and conditions have changed.  It will not be the old MFW, but  
I do think that it has an important role to play.  Additionally, I  
wish people wouldn't think so much about the MILLENNIUM, but more  
about what their own needs are as filmmakers and what gaps exist in  
today's current situation that MFW can fill.  I am optimistic about  
the current MFW and have nothing but full support and appreciation  
for those who are working hard or providing support.  I would hope  
that you and others who have negative opinions would reconsider, be  
open minded, and be involved.  If not, that's ok too, but I do not  
want to see every posting regarding MFW to be met with this kind of  
communication.


Jay




On Thu, Oct 1, 2015 at 10:02 PM, David Baker <dbak...@hvc.rr.com>  
wrote:

Jay,

Because I, along with Margot Niederland  and Howard helped Lili White
to organize and move the vast archives to a safe warehouse
I know firsthand how perilous that moment was.
There was a porousness and scariness at Millennium then which I  
hope never to encounter again.

It was like NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD
(Romero 1968 black and white version).
We had to work with the utmost speed and efficiency for fear
all would be lost in one scenario or another.
Again I will say it is my deeply considered opinion that had Lili  
not initiated action
at the moment she did the fate of the archives would have been very  
different.

There was no question amongst those working to preserve this material
of the stakes involved. We were simply not willing to leave it in  
your hands.
Your relentless assassination of Howard's character was common  
knowledge.


Because I spent time with Howard until his last

Re: [Frameworks] Millennium Film Workshop

[David Baker]

Jay,

Rare flowers that germinated in the dark
in that moldy old  place
will not come again.
We will never be as free to play with all the potentialities
of projected light as we were there then.
Still it must go on.

"Darkness  cannot drive out darkness,
only light can do that."

-Martin Luther KIng Jr.

I will say no more on the subject.

David


On Oct 2, 2015, at 11:54 AM, Jay Hudson wrote:


To Sasha,

Your words are inappropriate, offensive, and abusive.  I will not  
tolerate it, and I demand that it stop.  If this type of conduct is  
against framework's terms of use, I ask Pip to remove Sasha from the  
list if this continues.  I have moved on and hold animosity towards  
no one.  There was no justification to bring me into it.


To David,

I think it is better to lower the tone on this because I think you  
are speaking from the heart and with good intentions.  It is better  
if you consider that the situation with the Millennium followed a  
very common and recognizable patterns in non-profits.  I made my  
decisions based on extensive research and speaking with non-profit  
experts, attorneys, and other professionals.  Every person that I  
spoke with was extremely direct and unambiguous in saying that there  
was a serious problem that had to be addressed immediately.  A few  
even said that there was no point in trying to correct it.  I did  
what I thought was best and responsible.


Those of use working at MFW inherited a situation where the  
organization was more than $40K in debt with the landlord. Howard  
basically dropped out of sight when he got sick and I had to step in  
to put out fires with the landlord.   When the archive thing was  
going on, MFW was trying to negotiate a new lease.  We were being  
served with papers.  Almost everything in the way that MFW  
functioned was so dependent on one individual, that there were  
almost no established patterns to run things.  Naturally when he was  
not doing so, things fall apart.  MFW was failing what is called the  
risk assessment test, where an organization can not function without  
a certain individual.  This is unhealthy to an organization, plus it  
makes it much more difficult to get funding.


I prefer that this be the last of this thread of this  
communication.  What happened, happened.  These issues have no  
pertinence to today's events.  There is no sense in unproductively  
dwelling on events that are unresolvable.  No one can be completely  
objective in this.


It is much better to think about the current MFW for what it is.   
Times and conditions have changed.  It will not be the old MFW, but  
I do think that it has an important role to play.  Additionally, I  
wish people wouldn't think so much about the MILLENNIUM, but more  
about what their own needs are as filmmakers and what gaps exist in  
today's current situation that MFW can fill.  I am optimistic about  
the current MFW and have nothing but full support and appreciation  
for those who are working hard or providing support.  I would hope  
that you and others who have negative opinions would reconsider, be  
open minded, and be involved.  If not, that's ok too, but I do not  
want to see every posting regarding MFW to be met with this kind of  
communication.


Jay




On Thu, Oct 1, 2015 at 10:02 PM, David Baker <dbak...@hvc.rr.com>  
wrote:

Jay,

Because I, along with Margot Niederland  and Howard helped Lili White
to organize and move the vast archives to a safe warehouse
I know firsthand how perilous that moment was.
There was a porousness and scariness at Millennium then which I hope  
never to encounter again.

It was like NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD
(Romero 1968 black and white version).
We had to work with the utmost speed and efficiency for fear
all would be lost in one scenario or another.
Again I will say it is my deeply considered opinion that had Lili  
not initiated action
at the moment she did the fate of the archives would have been very  
different.

There was no question amongst those working to preserve this material
of the stakes involved. We were simply not willing to leave it in  
your hands.
Your relentless assassination of Howard's character was common  
knowledge.


Because I spent time with Howard until his last month
I know the uncommon grace with which he worked with everyone  
connected to the Millennium

after he was deposed
even when shut out of important channels of communication.
I know he was absolutely devoted to keeping the Millennium going.
I also know that he regarded you as I do as someone
who consistently hits below the belt.

Criticism I have for the current organization pales
before that which I reserve for you.

You will live in infamy in the annals of the Millennium Film Workshop.
You hit Howard when he was down (health crisis / in the hospital).
You took the Millennium from a righteous threadbare struggling  
cultural organization
to an obscenely chaotic mess that accomplished nothing duri

Re: [Frameworks] Millennium Film Workshop

[David Baker]

Thanks Amanda
You ARE a poet.
(just watch out for Elizabeth)

DB


On Oct 2, 2015, at 8:22 PM, Amanda Christie wrote:


I for one appreciated the poetic touch...


I believe in the flowers that germinate and bloom from dark places.
There is never just one.
Dark soil is fertile ground.
The crocus never blooms unless it has been frozen in the winter and  
kept in the dark underground and hidden from light...


crocuses bloom every spring...
it's not the same flowers, but it is the same soil.
I believe in the flowers that geminate and bloom from dark places.







On 2015-10-02, at 9:16 PM, David Baker wrote:


Your the boss Elizabeth.
No poetry intended just the flawed way I write.
Thanks for you help,
lesson learned.

One thing though, please be certain I need no good will from you
nor was I trying to garner any from anyone else.
I just was trying to find a form that fit.
You win some you lose some.

DB




On Oct 2, 2015, at 7:42 PM, Elizabeth McMahon wrote:


You had already said more than plenty.

Your cryptic "poem" is such a distraction for a general listserv.  
Send stuff like this to the intended party and leave the public  
out of it. It is just embarrassing, and garners you no good will.


Elizabeth McMahon

On Fri, Oct 2, 2015 at 7:26 PM, David Baker <dbak...@hvc.rr.com>  
wrote:

Jay,

Rare flowers that germinated in the dark
in that moldy old  place
will not come again.
We will never be as free to play with all the potentialities
of projected light as we were there then.
Still it must go on.

"Darkness  cannot drive out darkness,
only light can do that."

-Martin Luther KIng Jr.

I will say no more on the subject.

David


On Oct 2, 2015, at 11:54 AM, Jay Hudson wrote:


To Sasha,

Your words are inappropriate, offensive, and abusive.  I will not  
tolerate it, and I demand that it stop.  If this type of conduct  
is against framework's terms of use, I ask Pip to remove Sasha  
from the list if this continues.  I have moved on and hold  
animosity towards no one.  There was no justification to bring me  
into it.


To David,

I think it is better to lower the tone on this because I think  
you are speaking from the heart and with good intentions.  It is  
better if you consider that the situation with the Millennium  
followed a very common and recognizable patterns in non-profits.   
I made my decisions based on extensive research and speaking with  
non-profit experts, attorneys, and other professionals.  Every  
person that I spoke with was extremely direct and unambiguous in  
saying that there was a serious problem that had to be addressed  
immediately.  A few even said that there was no point in trying  
to correct it.  I did what I thought was best and responsible.


Those of use working at MFW inherited a situation where the  
organization was more than $40K in debt with the landlord. Howard  
basically dropped out of sight when he got sick and I had to step  
in to put out fires with the landlord.   When the archive thing  
was going on, MFW was trying to negotiate a new lease.  We were  
being served with papers.  Almost everything in the way that MFW  
functioned was so dependent on one individual, that there were  
almost no established patterns to run things.  Naturally when he  
was not doing so, things fall apart.  MFW was failing what is  
called the risk assessment test, where an organization can not  
function without a certain individual.  This is unhealthy to an  
organization, plus it makes it much more difficult to get funding.


I prefer that this be the last of this thread of this  
communication.  What happened, happened.  These issues have no  
pertinence to today's events.  There is no sense in  
unproductively dwelling on events that are unresolvable.  No one  
can be completely objective in this.


It is much better to think about the current MFW for what it is.   
Times and conditions have changed.  It will not be the old MFW,  
but I do think that it has an important role to play.   
Additionally, I wish people wouldn't think so much about the  
MILLENNIUM, but more about what their own needs are as filmmakers  
and what gaps exist in today's current situation that MFW can  
fill.  I am optimistic about the current MFW and have nothing but  
full support and appreciation for those who are working hard or  
providing support.  I would hope that you and others who have  
negative opinions would reconsider, be open minded, and be  
involved.  If not, that's ok too, but I do not want to see every  
posting regarding MFW to be met with this kind of communication.


Jay




On Thu, Oct 1, 2015 at 10:02 PM, David Baker <dbak...@hvc.rr.com>  
wrote:

Jay,

Because I, along with Margot Niederland  and Howard helped Lili  
White

to organize and move the vast archives to a safe warehouse
I know firsthand how perilous that moment was.
There was a porousness and scariness at Millennium then which I  
hope never to encounter again.

It w

Re: [Frameworks] Millennium Film Workshop

[David Baker]

blem with that, tough shit.  I have no complaints about it, nor  
any animosity towards anyone, but I am not going to take shit for it  
either.


I have been away from MFW for two years and have moved on.  As tough  
as it was, it was a great experience for me.  I was thankful to have  
the opportunity.  I also am supportive of the current board.  I  
think that people should not think about how MFW was or how MFW  
should be, but how MFW is, what MFW can do and what they themselves  
can do to contribute.  If people want to be stuck on negative shit  
from the past, that is their problem, not mine.  If people don't  
like the "now" MFW, they don't have to participate.





On Wed, Sep 30, 2015 at 1:41 PM, Francisco Torres <fjtorre...@gmail.com 
> wrote:
I would like to bring something up may seem harsh to most people on  
this discussion- Why not close the place for good already? After all  
these years it seems like the only sensible thing to do. As of ''As  
if it was our last day'' it seems that day is long past for the MFW.  
Maybe it was the day they closed shop at 4th street. Only the  
journal will remain as testimony of its greatness. And our memories.





2015-09-30 12:26 GMT-04:00 David Baker <dbak...@hvc.rr.com>:
Dear Sasha,

For all those who enter the orbit of this strange institution
there are endless irreconcilable ironies to untangle.

There is considerable mystery in how Howard Guttenplan was able to  
preside despotically for forty years

without adherence to any of the precepts set forth in the bylaws,
simultaneously acting single handedly as steward to a cultural  
milieu of such importance

that MoMA would proffer eighty five thousand dollars
(a number I believe was low for the staggering trove therein)
to obtain the archives.

Lili White as much as she may vex
(I have no appreciation for gender biased curation whatever the  
rationale)
decisively stepped up to lead a tiny group of people in order to  
preserve the
Millennium Film Workshop Archives at a moment of almost unimaginable  
disorder and chaos.
Were she not to have acted with such forceful authority this  
treasure could easily have
been made to disappear by an ensuing political regime determined to  
negate Howard's

achievement.

As ironies go, one of the greatest for me to negotiate
has been observing my mentor Ken Jacobs's recent involvement with  
the Millennium,

serving as  great Oz behind
an obfuscating curtain in successive post-Howard "democratic"  
political regimes

each of which eschewed and expunged the monthly open screenings
that were an entry portal of the most democratic kind.
The irony being that it was precisely the open screening format
that gave Ken his start as a maker.
Things blossom in that sort of environment that cannot occur  
elsewhere.
One Friday on Fourth Street I remember the rare paperback book  
specialist and great single frame advance
practitioner Chris Eckhoff a.k.a. Mr. E speaking about the  
projection screen, he asked
"What if residue from all the films that have ever been projected on  
that screen

are still there in some way?".
Thereafter I treated that particular projection surface
as a secret sacred palimpsest.
When Millennium collapsed and the screen came down,
the ghosts were gone.
The place was useless to us.


Cronyism and concomitant kickbacks do not make a cultural milieu of  
consequence.


Singular courage and passion of the intensity you demonstrate does!

As artists it is our mandate to be fearless, to find a way, to make  
it happen.


As if it was our last day.

David



On Sep 30, 2015, at 12:16 AM, Sasha Janerus wrote:


Thank you Dr. Walley. Thank you David.

It is worth noting that MFW has kept this document off their  
website. Strictly speaking you're right about the "President"  
thing, which I'd forgotten about--but it's really a technicality,  
as the title doesn't bring any special powers. George was not  
elected to this or any other position, but was . As I recall it,  
after Howard stepped down, a member-consensus decision was made to  
keep the director off the board, and to have the ED be appointed by  
the board. All of which makes good sense, especially given  
everything that had transpired during the latter phase of the  
Gutenplan period, though this emergency measure should have been  
ratified by a timely revision of the bylaws. So "President" here is  
just an honorific--same term, different meaning--so that the board  
looks the way boards are supposed to look.


If only the board had acted the way a board's supposed to act.

One other quibble, David: the verb: "to Gerrymander" implies that  
elections are in fact taking place. The mot juste would have been  
"to steal."


***

George,

I didn't receive your email as you didn't send one to me.  
Apparently the fact that I don't agree with your failure to follow  
MFW's bylaws means that I'm not to be counted a &quo

Re: [Frameworks] Millennium Film Workshop

[David Baker]

ed  
to see them. And why not?: it belongs to its members and to the  
community, and not to you.


If you'd like to have a discussion about Millennium's future, I'd  
encourage you to do so in full view of your constituency, which I'm  
sure you'll agree extends beyond present membership and self- 
selected "friends". Here are some places to begin:


Could you put text of MFW's present bylaws on your website-- 
preferably not on an orphaned page.


How many active members does MFW presently have? How many of them do  
you consider elligible to vote? How many lapsed members would you  
consider eligible to vote upon renewal? According to what criteria?


How much cash does MFW have on hand?

What are its month-to-month expenses?

What were its FY2014 net income and expenditures, exclusive of the  
MoMA money?


How much income did MFW receive from workshops and equipment rentals  
FY14? How much profit on the same?


Has the board passed any resolutions to compensate Peter Kingsbury?  
If so, for how much?


ON WHAT DATE, IN OCTOBER, IS A MEMBERS MEETING TO BE HELD?

Finally, there is the question of "slander." I was careful to frame  
certain statements speculatively, and in your last email to me you  
enjoined me to "desist from broadcasting via Frameworks opinions and  
speculation that are not based on facts." The present opacity of MFW  
makes a necessity of speculation. I do, however, know these people.  
Lili, for instance, attempted to program herself in a Millennium  
show at the New School, with a $200 honorarium for a single film.  
Steph and I stepped in, and those with conflicts of interest were  
replaced by Jen Reeves and Peter Hutton, among others. Lili promptly  
one-upped herself by having her husband build Millennium a website.  
MFW was stuck with unauthorized, recurring, exorbitant paypal  
payments. The website Mark built was so shitty it had to be replaced  
by the current shitty site.


MFW has furnished me with many more interesting anecdotes. And I  
should note I have been a model of restraint insofar as I have not  
contacted or the NY arts press, regulatory bodies, or your  
prospective funders. That stance is subject to revision.


Yours in cinema

Sasha Janerus

PS I have a sneaking suspicion certain phrases in the trash you've  
been sending out as "Outreach Coordinator" were derived, consciously  
or not, from the grants and other fluff I wrote. It's the sort of  
vague, pseudo-descriptive language that is meant to sound inspiring  
when the situation is anything but.


On Tue, Sep 29, 2015 at 10:08 PM, David Baker <dbak...@hvc.rr.com>  
wrote:

Dear Mr. Spencer,

Your skill as an Outreach Coordinator is certainly evident.

I mean no disrespect in asking who designated you President of
Millennium Film Workshop?
As I read the bylaws (with which Howard Guttenplan was wrested
from his long time role as Executive Director), it stipulates in  
Article I  #2,

the President is to be voted on by the membership.
I have no recollection of this election occurring in regards to you
holding this office.
Is it possible I missed this important event?
Perhaps I am in some way mistaken.

It is my understanding that the original bylaws are applicable
until the membership chooses to ratify a new set of bylaws.
Is this not the case?

Attached are the original bylaws as they were sent to me by Jay
Hudson on 9/21/11.

I do not think Sasha Janerus is alone in the perception that this
venerable institution has been gerrymandered by a coterie of  
insiders bent on personal

enrichment of one sort or another.
This may in part explain the precipitous decline in Millennium's
membership from last year's 89 to the current 40 active members
(as I count them on this recent list, http://millenniumfilm.org/memberlist/ 
 )


I would very much appreciate a response from you here in this forum.
Herein I also appreciate Jonathan Walley's caring constructive words
as they pertain to this matter.

Thank you,

David Baker



On Sep 27, 2015, at 8:55 PM, George Spencer wrote:


Hi, fellow experimental film enthusiasts-

The great institution of Millennium Film Workshop, which over 49  
years has done much to support the development of artists cinema,  
has been under financial threat since 2011.  Our governing board,  
executive director, and volunteer staff have struggled in extremely  
difficult circumstances not only to maintain our workshops,  
screenings, film journal, and equipment access programs, but to  
restructure our governance and operations.


THESE are the questions some of you are asking on FRAMEWORKS, and  
here is MFW's reply:


- Is there any foundation to the original allegations posted on  
7/10/15?
NO.  Millennium’s finance and operations are transparent, with best  
practices internal controls. Its board wholly supports and  
appreciates the work of its Executive Director, Peter Kingsbury,  
who will step down on October 31. Accusations against a public  
s

[Frameworks] Howard Guttenplan (April 6th, 1934 - February 23rd, 2015)

[David Baker]

Howard Guttenplan and the Millennium Film Workshop will be forever  
inextricably linked.
With absolute devotion until the very end, Howard dedicated his energy  
and expertise to keeping the Millennium going.
With inexplicable grace he withstood the recent indignities he was  
made to suffer.
During his tenure as Executive Director, Howard single handedly  
demonstrated acute discernment
in his Personal Cinema programs which made a place for the most  
accomplished and celebrated film artists
to project their work in close proximity with totally unknown makers  
of consequence.
In a kind of fearless visionary egalitarianism Howard insisted on a  
monthly Open Screening program
which functioned as an important portal for the self-taught, socially  
misaligned and/or politically maladroit outsider
to be discovered and to assimilate into the experimental film  
community regardless of resume or lack thereof.
Howard's Millennium was open to both the big fish and the little fish,  
the somebody's and the nobody's

in vibrant aesthetic exchange.
His great love was not film per se but the continuum of the  
experimental film medium,

the linked progression of forms from one artist to another over time,
with invention and innovation as its most telling attribute.
The Millennium Film Workshop Archives will testify abundantly to the  
astonishing procession of makers
who made this love manifest. Howard welcomed and treated each of these  
artists with uncommon respect.

Howard's own film oeuvre is a shining example of what is possible
when one is totally dedicated to a highly evolved form of truth and  
beauty.

In all these ways he changed my life.

-DB
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[Frameworks] Piero Heliczer

[David Baker]

In the banquet years of the early sixties deep on the Lower East  
Side of New York City
a legendary concrescence of genius occurred in the little circle  
consisting of

neighbors, friends and collaborators
Jack Smith, Tony Conrad, Angus Maclise and Piero Heliczer.
Like a fire in a flowerpot, theirs was a firmament with its own mad  
logic.


Piero Heliczer has until now been the most diffident, delicate and  
unknowable
of the four.  Curators Jonas Mekas and Johan Kugelberg at the Boo- 
Hooray Gallery,
265 Canal St. 6th Floor in NYC, have generously set forth a place  
where we can assemble
a portrait from many of the extraordinary puzzle pieces Piero left for  
us to ponder.


Of the 17 Underground films Heliczer made, most are lost, only a third  
remains in circulation.


Piero was primarily poet to Jack Smith's 'pataphysician.
The work and words of The Dead Language Press he founded
( the rarest of antiquarian grail )
are what we have here to learn from.
Within the walls of this important gallery wonder blossoms
and like a lost angel, Piero has through these fragments
found his way home.

This is his unforgettable voice:

http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Heliczer.php

Open every day until March 14th, Boo-Hooray is here:

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Re: [Frameworks] artist portraits

[David Baker]

Mental telepathy Andy.
I was just thinking of that seminal portrait with the Morton Feldman  
soundtrack.


Others that have been meaningful to me:

Bruce Conner's THE WHITE ROSE
(in which Jay DeFeo makes a painting so big and consequential that
  an exterior wall has to be knocked down in order
  to get its blazing glory out into the world.)


Paola Igliori - American Magus (2002)

EDWARD JAMES:BUILDER OF DREAMS by Avery Danziger

The two portraits of the maddest most sublime bricoleur of all,
Clarence Schmidt,

CLARENCE by Jud Yalkut

MY MIRRORED HOPE by Beryl Sokoloff (1963)


John Cage  Mushroom Hunting in Stony Point - Jud Yalkut

The crucial,

Yayoi Kusama and Yalkut's KUSAMA'S SELF OBLITERRATION

Ken Jacob's RONALD GONZALES SCULPTOR
   FLO ROUNDS A CORNER
   TWO WRENCHING DEPARTURES

Henry Hills NERVOUS KEN with the heartbreakingly beautiful never to be  
forgotten

Emma Bernstein!

and my very favorite artist portrait, the segment Ken excised in STAR  
SPANGLED TO DEATH

from UNUSUAL OCCUPATIONS (1942)
of the whittler William D. Randolph of Rudolph Ohio.

FILM by Samuel Beckett and Alan Schneider
while not intended directly to be a portrait
of Buster Keaton
certainly sits in my head that way.

One more

JEU D'ECHECS AVEC MARCEL DUCHAMP (1963)

with appearances by Edgard Varese.

Forthcoming I have one of Ken and Flo Jacobs with Ernie Gehr
walking up Second Avenue on Halloween Eve
after a program of Segundo de Chomon films
at Anthology some years back.



On Feb 8, 2014, at 9:54 AM, Andy Ditzler wrote:

Haven't seen it mentioned so far, but an oft-referenced work in this  
genre is Hans Namuth's film on Jackson Pollock: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cgBvpjwOGo


Andy Ditzler



On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 8:16 PM, kate lain k...@katemakesfilms.com  
wrote:
Hi, frameworkers.  I’m looking for examples of portraits of artists  
and/or their processes or their works — sculptors, musicians, poets,  
other filmmakers, etc.  Really interested in hearing about non- 
standard, non-straight-doc, artistic/artist-made films and videos  
about other artists.  Particularly keen on short works.  Bonus  
points for ones available in some form online.  Thanks in advance  
for any suggestions you might have!


All the best,
Kate

--
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k...@katemakesfilms.com
626.644.5283

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--

Andy Ditzler
www.filmlove.org
www.johnq.org
Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts, Emory University
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Re: [Frameworks] artist portraits

[David Baker]

Sorry one more I forgot
that means so much to me

Robert Smithson's SPIRAL JETTY,
with its vertiginous Icarus like intimations
of what no one then could know,
how he would leave this world.
The earthen spiral itself rhyming with the
reel of celluloid in the editing room.

It is important to say that Robert Smithson
was every bit Richard Serra's equal.
With his geologic unorthodoxies being a necessary counterpart to  
Serra's steely rigor.

What was lost with Smithson's death can never be calculated,
only dreamed about forever after.


On Feb 8, 2014, at 10:39 AM, David Baker wrote:


Mental telepathy Andy.
I was just thinking of that seminal portrait with the Morton Feldman  
soundtrack.


Others that have been meaningful to me:

Bruce Conner's THE WHITE ROSE
(in which Jay DeFeo makes a painting so big and consequential that
  an exterior wall has to be knocked down in order
  to get its blazing glory out into the world.)


Paola Igliori - American Magus (2002)

EDWARD JAMES:BUILDER OF DREAMS by Avery Danziger

The two portraits of the maddest most sublime bricoleur of all,
Clarence Schmidt,

CLARENCE by Jud Yalkut

MY MIRRORED HOPE by Beryl Sokoloff (1963)


John Cage  Mushroom Hunting in Stony Point - Jud Yalkut

The crucial,

Yayoi Kusama and Yalkut's KUSAMA'S SELF OBLITERRATION

Ken Jacob's RONALD GONZALES SCULPTOR
   FLO ROUNDS A CORNER
   TWO WRENCHING DEPARTURES

Henry Hills NERVOUS KEN with the heartbreakingly beautiful never to  
be forgotten

Emma Bernstein!

and my very favorite artist portrait, the segment Ken excised in  
STAR SPANGLED TO DEATH

from UNUSUAL OCCUPATIONS (1942)
of the whittler William D. Randolph of Rudolph Ohio.

FILM by Samuel Beckett and Alan Schneider
while not intended directly to be a portrait
of Buster Keaton
certainly sits in my head that way.

One more

JEU D'ECHECS AVEC MARCEL DUCHAMP (1963)

with appearances by Edgard Varese.

Forthcoming I have one of Ken and Flo Jacobs with Ernie Gehr
walking up Second Avenue on Halloween Eve
after a program of Segundo de Chomon films
at Anthology some years back.



On Feb 8, 2014, at 9:54 AM, Andy Ditzler wrote:

Haven't seen it mentioned so far, but an oft-referenced work in  
this genre is Hans Namuth's film on Jackson Pollock: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cgBvpjwOGo


Andy Ditzler



On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 8:16 PM, kate lain k...@katemakesfilms.com  
wrote:
Hi, frameworkers.  I’m looking for examples of portraits of artists  
and/or their processes or their works — sculptors, musicians,  
poets, other filmmakers, etc.  Really interested in hearing about  
non-standard, non-straight-doc, artistic/artist-made films and  
videos about other artists.  Particularly keen on short works.   
Bonus points for ones available in some form online.  Thanks in  
advance for any suggestions you might have!


All the best,
Kate

--
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k...@katemakesfilms.com
626.644.5283

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--

Andy Ditzler
www.filmlove.org
www.johnq.org
Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts, Emory University
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[Frameworks] To A Locomotive In Winter

[David Baker]

I would like to encourage Frameworkers in the vicinity
of the city of Kleve on the Northern Rhine, Dutch – German border,
to come see work I have made
in collaboration with the composer Florian Wittenburg
being exhibited at Museum Kurhaus / Kleve on February 13.

http://www.museumkurhaus.de/de/8138.html
This will be the program:

Danses de Travers, for piano – Eric Satie
What Was Was, for video and electronics – David Baker (US), Florian  
Wittenburg (GER)

In a landscape, for piano – John Cage
Currents, for video and electronics – Jon Forshee (US), Russell  
Richardson (US)

Last pieces, for piano – Morton Feldman
Mise en abyme, for video and electronics - David Baker, Florian  
Wittenburg

Quotes I-VI, for piano and electronics – Florian Wittenburg

 Along with  WHAT WAS WAS 
previously shown at the Milwaukee Underground Film Festival
and at Union Docs in Brooklyn,
here writ large in projected light the world premiere of:

 MISE EN ABYME 

Literally defined as  placed into abyss  or alternately  standing  
between two mirrors .
This piece is handmade to the extent that a digital work can be said  
to be so,
constructed one frame at a time, in relation to the sounds of “Bowed  
Piano Piece 1” by Florian Wittenburg.


 Direct objects, (simple circles and squares) trace a tripartite  
chromatic arc

  in oscillations both microscopic and macroscopic,
  almost like an antique exploding picture box with transparent parts.
 Tantric, hypnotic, motion generating the imperatives of verbs with  
supernatural sway… hortative modalities.”


In my process I am always open to the liberties pure play provides. In  
this case I discovered in detritus derived from very early Japanese  
animated cartoons, tiny zones of potential, little expansions and  
contractions, openings and closings at the beginnings and endings of  
these animal narratives. Usually one to four frames in duration I  
looped these shards and layered them. This is what you see.
 Significant to me, the work will be shown publicly for the first  
time at Museum Kurhaus / Kleve, a building which once housed an early  
studio of the artist Joseph Beuys.

 To the free skies, unpent, and glad, and strong. 
 -Walt Whitman
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Re: [Frameworks] Kenneth Anger?

[David Baker]

Well

While I can not offer direct contact information for Kenneth Anger
I can relate an instance of uncanniness vis a vis  Mr. Anger.
At a Cine Equipment Sale on January 28, 2012, held to expunge the old
4th Street basement Millennium Film Workshop of some of its lesser  
assets
along with numerous other cinephiles, I was interested in sifting  
through undifferentiated 16mm dross

in a huge heap being sold for next to nothing.

As a kind of grace before I went digging and because I knew the  
Millennium I loved was finished
I went up to an old upright piano I had heard tell was brought into  
the space by Kenneth Anger
expressly for a performance he did there. Quietly with reverence I  
played a few notes

and walked away knowing I'd never see those keys again.

I walked over to the frenzy of pickers at the pile of film cans  
scattered all over the floor.
My jaw just dropped when the very first can I opened utterly  
absolutely arbitrarily ( I swear )

contained a single reel of the 1935 A Midsummer Night's Dream
(in Spanish), a film Mr. Anger  claims to have appeared in as a child  
actor.

I took this as a beneficent sign or portent, a wink to acknowledge
a secret shared path.

( Nothing else I could locate in that pile of 16mm film was anything  
but worthless garbage.)


If you do speak with him,
please extend to him my thanks.
The proverbial check is in the mail
in an extrasensory sense of course.
Here I am not joking.

-DB

On Feb 4, 2014, at 3:24 PM, Francisco Torres wrote:


Maybe using arcane methods like John Dee's mirror... Just kidding.


On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 3:26 PM, Dylan Sharp dylansh...@gmail.com  
wrote:
I am also looking for this as the email provided on his website  
doesn't elicit a reply. That could be intentional though I suppose.


Dylan Sharp





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Re: [Frameworks] Films/Videos looking at concepts of work

[David Baker]

Getting work:

nestled deep in Ken Jacob's STAR SPANGLED TO DEATH
is another film by James Otis - ON YOUR OWN (1981)
a cut-up found film shot in an employment agency (circa the 1960s?)
with editing structured around the repeated words job jobs
and training .


Getting to work:

Mark Ostrowski's LA LINEA (2012)
(Spanish for Bus Line)

brings to my mind
Chris Marker
as well as
William Carlos Williams's poem
THE RED WHEELBARROW.

http://vimeo.com/39931620

Human beings have the need to believe in something,
interact socially, and love each other. If not, you'd die of
a broken heart or a heart attack. There's no doubt about
what someone needs for personal well-being...



On Jan 7, 2014, at 5:33 AM, Insa Langhorst wrote:


Dear Frameworkers,

I would like to build a list of video art and films which look at  
aspects, concepts and realities of work. One piece I came across  
recently is Johan van der Keuken's Temps/Travail (1999).


Does anyone have any other suggestions?

Thanks,

Insa
www.insalanghorst.com
+44 778 93 8 22 84 (UK)
+49 176 86 74 83 45 (D)
insa.langho...@gmail.com


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Re: [Frameworks] Found Soundtrack Films

[David Baker]

I will cite
Ken's anamorphic astonishment

KRYPTON IS DOOMED  (2005)

http://www.eai.org/title.htm?id=10759

also see Mary Helena Clark's most amazing

AND THE SUN FLOWERS

http://vimeo.com/42048057

(Here found sound starts at 2:04 approximately.)

DB


On Nov 25, 2013, at 9:27 PM, William Wees, Dr. wrote:

Yes, that's a good one too. I was going to mention it but couldn't  
remember the title.


--Bill Wees


There is this one by Ken Jacobs:

GLOBE (1971, 22 mins, 16mm, color, sound on cassette) (Previously  
titled: EXCERPT FROM THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION) “Flat image (of  
snowbound suburban housing tract) blossoms into 3D only when viewer  
places Eye Opener before the right eye. (Keeping both eyes open, of  
course. As with all stereo experiences, center seats are best. Space  
will deepen as one views further from the screen.) The found-sound  
is X-ratable (not for children or Nancy Reagan) but is important to  
the film’s perfect balance (GLOBE is symmetrical) of divine and  
profane.” (KJ)  (pasted in from

http://nightingalecinema.org/ken-jacobs-x-3-old-new/)

I've seen it, and am not completely sure what I thought of it. It is  
at the least extremely interesting.


Fred Camper
Chicago

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Re: [Frameworks] sand animation examples?

[David Baker]

Not straight - ahead per se,
but seminal granular vision
nonetheless...

HISTORY - Ernie Gehr (1970)

AXIOMATIC GRANULARITY - Paul Sharits (1973)

ALAYA - Nathaniel Dorsky (1976-1987)

-DB


On Nov 18, 2013, at 5:14 PM, Pierce, Greg wrote:


Hi, Stephanie.
This is the one I remember seeing on PBS when I was a kid - The Sand  
Castle (Le château de sable) (1977) by Co Hoedeman. It's a National  
Film Board of Canada flick. I got a print of this recently but sadly  
it's pink as all get out.

Greg

-Original Message-
From: FrameWorks [mailto:frameworks-boun...@jonasmekasfilms.com] On  
Behalf Of Stephanie Hutin

Sent: Monday, November 18, 2013 4:52 PM
To: Experimental Film Discussion List
Subject: [Frameworks] sand animation examples?

Hello everyone,

I always appreciate the insightful and thoughtful to questions like  
these, so here is another:


I am planning to give a lecture and workshop on straight-ahead sand  
animation this week in my animation class.  I would like to update  
my examples list with things I may not be familiar with.  Any  
suggestions for sand animation that are not the usual suspects?   
Thanks!


Best,
Stephanie




Stephanie Hutin
Director of Production
Intercollegiate Media Studies
Mosbacher Gartrell Center for Media Experimentation and Activism  
Pitzer College

1050 North Mills Ave., West Hall
Claremont, CA 91711
909.607.3889
stephanie_hu...@pitzer.edu



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Re: [Frameworks] avant-garde, seminal writing on American a/g film after 76

[David Baker]

Youngblood, like Zeuss you are throwing lightning bolts here!

At the top of my list then,
the forthcoming
SECESSION FROM BROADCAST: GENE YOUNGBLOOD
AND THE COMMUNICATIONS REVOLUTION
and/or
VIRTUAL SPACE: THE CHALLENGE TO CREATE ON THE SAME SCALE
AS WE CAN DESTROY

( Electrified by your thoughts here ((and also potentially?)) 13 years  
after this blazing interview. )


Meanwhile,
(written before reading Gene's interview)

Seminal writings related to the original query
I have found nourishing:

the big big
BUFFALO HEADS:Media Study,Media Practice,Media Pioneers 1973-1990
edited by Vasulka and Peter Weibel

Women's Experimental Cinema:Critical Frameworks
editor Robin Blaetz

Peter Tscherkassky
-Horwath, Loebenstein editors

Anthony McCall:The Solid Light Films and Related Works
-Branden Joseph and Jonathan Walley
Edited by Christopher Eamon

Is This What You Were Born For?
-Abigail Child

This Is Called Moving:
A Critical Poetics Of Film
-Abigail Child

Optic Antics:The Cinema Of Ken Jacobs
Pierson, James, and Arthur

-DB

On Nov 8, 2013, at 10:02 AM, Gene Youngblood wrote:

Given the state of the world today, there are many compelling  
reasons for removing the idea of an avant-garde from art history and  
returning it to the political arena where it began. That’s been one  
of my goals as a theorist for a long time. Here’s a conversation  
about it 23 years ago. http://www.neme.org/1627/metadesigning-for-the-future 
  Remember this is 1990, five years before the World Wide Web. One  
implication of this view, not stated here, is that any kind of art,  
no matter how retrograde, can participate in an avant-garde project  
because the site of avant-gardness is no longer art, it’s the “new  
alliance” as such. That doesn’t negate any of the reasons given in  
this thread for accepting or rejecting the notion of avant-garde  
art, it just frames them in a larger context, more appropriate to  
the paleocybernetic era in which we live.


From: Cari Machet
Sent: Friday, November 08, 2013 6:56 AM
To: Experimental Film Discussion List
Subject: Re: [Frameworks] seminal writing on American a/g film after  
76


agreed the threshold is ever forward

thinking somehow that the time u exist in has a holding on anything  
like expansion is just what in the psyche ?


Cari Machet
NYC 646-436-7795
carimac...@gmail.com
AIM carismachet
Skype carimachet - 646-652-6434
Syria +963-099 277 3243
Amman +962 077 636 9407
Berlin +49 152 11779219
Twitter: @carimachet https://twitter.com/carimachet

Ruh-roh, this is now necessary: This email is intended only for the  
addressee(s) and may contain confidential information. If you are  
not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any use of  
this information, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this  
email without permission is strictly prohibited.




On Fri, Nov 8, 2013 at 2:43 PM, o...@thenowcorporation.com o...@thenowcorporation.com 
 wrote:
interesting. avant garde,experimental,personal. I think ag  
filmmaking is personal filmmaking. films made for viewing by art,  
poetry and film lovers and/or people who are inquisitive and open to  
non traditional forms and/or subjects. films made by artists for the  
many reasons anyone makes art.

that will endure.
Owen


 On Nov 7, 2013, at 7:31 PM, Fred Camper f...@fredcamper.com wrote:

 Quoting Stashu Kybartas skyb...@me.com:

 There is no avant-garde now.  The internet insures that NOTHING  
will stay avant - EVER.


 I tried to make this point pre-Internet, in my 1986 article The  
End of Avant-Garde Film in the 20th anniversary issue of  
Millennium Film Journal.
 By 1986, in my opinion, common usage was that an experimental or  
avant-garde film was a film with certain features, such as  
scratching or painting on film, a limited or abstracted narrative,  
non-linear editing, very small cast and crew, and others -- some of  
these if not all of them. Scratching on film was by then no longer  
avant-garde, in the sense of new or advanced, and the terms  
experimental and avant-garde has come to denote a style of  
filmmaking. This is neither good nor bad, but one important reason  
to understand it is that artists must realize that techniques  
already used don't justify themselves; everything depends on the  
total work.


 Fred Camper
 Chicago

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[Frameworks] Yalkut's AQUARIAN RUSHES

[David Baker]

At the Filmmaker's Coop a week ago the fearless indefatigable M.M. Serra
along with perspicacious resident scholar Greg Zinman
presented (for a tiny group of  cognoscenti) the astounding part 2 of  
a Jud Yalkut Memorial Screening.
Like a lightning bolt out of the darkness they projected a pristine  
print of
one of the least seen most amazing masterpieces of counterculture  
cinema,
the fabled AQUARIAN RUSHES (1970), Yalkut's scintillating hybrid  
distillation
of the 1969 Woodstock Music  Art Fair. Said to be a favorite of  
Martin Scorsese, believe it !!
AQUARIAN RUSHES is the object of a prolonged endeavor, a grail,  
wondrous but not explicitly holy,

a hybrid of film,video and digital manipulation with psychedelic schisms
and otherworldly tactilities, as ecstatic as it is intimate.
Yalkut is here a witness wrapped in wonder, an avant-garde filmmaker  
at the height of his powers of observation,
with a fascination for backstage minutiae as well as legendary  
performances

in never before seen oblique angles.

As if that wasn't enough, the master of sensory overload, legendary
85 year old multichannel poet Gerd Stern, founder of USCO the  
Intermedia commune in upstate New York,

wandered in with unforgettable stories to tell...

meeting Harry Smith eating casaba melons
at Jimbo's Bop City in the late 40's.
By flashlight, sworn to silence, seeing Harry's art work placed on the  
floor
of his flophouse in San Francisco's  Fillmore district before anyone  
knew

he was a filmmaker.

Quoting Charlotte Moorman at one of the first Expanded Cinema Festivals
in the early Sixties:
When you're playing the cello
with flowers you have to listen closely.

What he did not tell was that he was Maya Angelou's lover,
that he had been hospitalized with BOTH Carl Solomon AND Allen Ginsberg,
that he worked closely with Harry Partch,
that he was the producer of Timothy Leary''s Psychedelic Theater.
Nor did he say he had known Jordan Belson, Philip Lamantia,
Michael McClure, Harold Edgerton, Dennis Hopper,
Ken Kesey, Bob Dylan, Stewart Brand, Charlie Parker, Lenny Bruce,
Marshall McLuhan or Huey Newton, but indeed he has.

He also failed to mention that he had a bathtub rigged as a waterpipe
on his barge in Sausalito, which he got Count Basie high with.

M.M. says he's coming back in a couple of months.
Do not dare miss Gerd Stern's return.
He is one of the greatest raconteur's living on this planet.

Just saying,

DB
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Re: [Frameworks] Yalkut's AQUARIAN RUSHES

[David Baker]

Andy,

My pleasure.
I am thankful as well for this important place
to testify to the sights and sounds
that make me shake.

DB


On Nov 6, 2013, at 10:09 AM, Andy Ditzler wrote:


David, thank you for this.

Andy Ditzler


On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 8:45 AM, David Baker dbak...@hvc.rr.com  
wrote:
At the Filmmaker's Coop a week ago the fearless indefatigable M.M.  
Serra

along with perspicacious resident scholar Greg Zinman
presented (for a tiny group of  cognoscenti) the astounding part 2  
of a Jud Yalkut Memorial Screening.
Like a lightning bolt out of the darkness they projected a pristine  
print of
one of the least seen most amazing masterpieces of counterculture  
cinema,
the fabled AQUARIAN RUSHES (1970), Yalkut's scintillating hybrid  
distillation
of the 1969 Woodstock Music  Art Fair. Said to be a favorite of  
Martin Scorsese, believe it !!
AQUARIAN RUSHES is the object of a prolonged endeavor, a grail,  
wondrous but not explicitly holy,
a hybrid of film,video and digital manipulation with psychedelic  
schisms

and otherworldly tactilities, as ecstatic as it is intimate.
Yalkut is here a witness wrapped in wonder, an avant-garde filmmaker  
at the height of his powers of observation,
with a fascination for backstage minutiae as well as legendary  
performances

in never before seen oblique angles.

As if that wasn't enough, the master of sensory overload, legendary
85 year old multichannel poet Gerd Stern, founder of USCO the  
Intermedia commune in upstate New York,

wandered in with unforgettable stories to tell...

meeting Harry Smith eating casaba melons
at Jimbo's Bop City in the late 40's.
By flashlight, sworn to silence, seeing Harry's art work placed on  
the floor
of his flophouse in San Francisco's  Fillmore district before anyone  
knew

he was a filmmaker.

Quoting Charlotte Moorman at one of the first Expanded Cinema  
Festivals

in the early Sixties:
When you're playing the cello
with flowers you have to listen closely.

What he did not tell was that he was Maya Angelou's lover,
that he had been hospitalized with BOTH Carl Solomon AND Allen  
Ginsberg,

that he worked closely with Harry Partch,
that he was the producer of Timothy Leary''s Psychedelic Theater.
Nor did he say he had known Jordan Belson, Philip Lamantia,
Michael McClure, Harold Edgerton, Dennis Hopper,
Ken Kesey, Bob Dylan, Stewart Brand, Charlie Parker, Lenny Bruce,
Marshall McLuhan or Huey Newton, but indeed he has.

He also failed to mention that he had a bathtub rigged as a waterpipe
on his barge in Sausalito, which he got Count Basie high with.

M.M. says he's coming back in a couple of months.
Do not dare miss Gerd Stern's return.
He is one of the greatest raconteur's living on this planet.

Just saying,

DB
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--

Andy Ditzler
www.filmlove.org
www.johnq.org

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[Frameworks] Richard Aidala projectionist extraordinaire

[David Baker]

Just a word here to say good bye
to an old, very loved, friend

Richard Aidala

chief projectionist at the American Museum Of The Moving Image.

He was a great raconteur
and one of the very greatest projectionists in New York City
or anywhere else.

If there was ever a place for a projectionist
in the Oscars : In Memoriam  segment
he should be there.

http://narrative.ly/the-past-is-present/master-of-a-dying-art/

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Re: [Frameworks] Jud Yalkut RIP

[David Baker]

Wouldn't that be something if the powers that be at the Coop
soon let loose a Yalkut marathon of his ecstatic oeuvre?!

Yes we are all part of a continuum.
We must be nourished by those who have gone before
in order to set forth new seeds of jouissance
built precisely on our predecessors backs.

The Coops list of Yalkut FILMS
reminds me of an important relation he shares with Stan Brakhage,
( in different ways ) both of them make you think profoundly
about OTHER artists
through the prism of their projections.

-DB

PS Pip, I never said it but obviously I love your FREE RADICALS.
  (Would I ever covet a Yalkut DVD.)

  And all the caring words and insight / information on this thread
  redeem my faith in this community.

On Jul 28, 2013, at 10:58 PM, Linda Fenstermaker wrote:

Very sad to hear about Jud, his work is incredible. In terms of his  
film locations, he is a member of The New York Film-Makers'  
Cooperative, where there is a substantial amount of his 16mm film  
print.


http://film-makerscoop.com/rentals-sales/search-results?fmc_authorLast=Yalkutfmc_title=fmc_description=x=-708y=-766
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Re: [Frameworks] Jud Yalkut RIP

[David Baker]

I would go a little further...
like the Beatles  played backwards
or Yoko Ono's Grapefruit
Jud Yalkut's work  made total sense
and meant a whole lot to me as an artist.

To say that he was consort
to Yayoi Kusama and Nam June Paik
speaks as loudly as anything
to the level he elaborated.

Yalkut made palpable
an electric wonderland of amazements,
a peephole into the marvelous potentialities
of a time and place
long ago lost.

How is it possible
on an Experimental Film Discussion List
that so little is said in salute
when someone of this singular magnitude
of achievement passes into the cosmic ether
of eternity?

I was knocked out by everything I saw him do.

-DB


On Jul 26, 2013, at 12:08 AM, o...@thenowcorporation.com wrote:

thank you for posting. some of his work is available for rental at  
filmmakers coop nyc, and well worth screening. sorry to hear this  
news. i enjoyed his films and his posts to this list through the  
years.

owen



On Jul 25, 2013, at 2:28 PM, Mark Toscano fiddy...@yahoo.com wrote:


Posting this here as I hadn't seen it reported yet...

http://www.wyso.org/post/local-artist-jud-yalkut-dies

Mark Toscano

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Re: [Frameworks] A

[David Baker]

Bait

On Jul 23, 2013, at 7:34 PM, Will Erokan wrote:


8

On Tue, Jul 23, 2013 at 1:55 PM, Sasha Janerus sasha.jane...@gmail.com 
 wrote:

B


On Tue, Jul 23, 2013 at 12:02 PM, Joshua Gibson josh...@duke.edu  
wrote:



Sent from my iPhone
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Re: [Frameworks] ELEPHANTS AND FILM

[David Baker]

I need to be clear and then I'll be quiet.

I am not interested in thinking of ways to kill elephants.

I stand in awe and wonder in front of all animals endangered and  
otherwise,

I love all the living creatures of this planet.
Right now today the Elephant is being wiped out with a brutality and  
efficacy

not seen since we Americans destroyed the buffalo.

A tiny group of human beings think that by making films
about what is happening they may be able to educate
those who would kill the elephants and those who buy ivory to the  
horror and stop the killing.


The people who make the films are here:

http://africanenvironmentalfilms.squarespace.com/donate

African Environmental Film Foundation.

( As a point of information, in the African Elephants I am  
specifically speaking about,

both male and female have tusks.)

-DB

PS:  where is Chris Marker when I need him?




On Mar 19, 2013, at 12:06 AM, Sandra Maliga wrote:

Not advocating.  I don't want to see any elephants killed. I have  
no interest in ivory. I can't understand how there could be people  
who do not understand that elephants should never be killed. BUt  
there are. There are people who lie for money and people who listen  
to them.  Moreover people who like ivory have no respect for the  
law. And the laws are not enforced.


 So what can be done?

As I understand the Chinese, they are pretty pragmatic, if I can  
generalize. Maybe taking action to propose a way to get legitimate  
ivory could deflect some of the interest in illegal ivory.
Prohibition leads to crime, legalizing and controlling is better.


When elephants could live and flourish in the wild there were  
natural deaths that left tusks.  If a herd was provided with space  
to thrive tusks could occasionally be found.  If the space was  
limited humans might be able to reverently cull  the herd by  
painlessly killing extra males and gathering their tusks. A mother  
with young would never be killed by rational keepers.


Poachers are not concerned with keeping elephants alive; they care  
only for short term profit.  Poaching must be illegal.  Murdering  
mother elephants must be illegal.


Perhaps another possibility is to pressure the Chinese government to  
enforce the laws.  I went to the Chinese news in English - CCTV  
site   http://passport.cntv.cn/app_pass/verify/english/new/login.jsp?errtype=-5#


 and they have articles about the threats to elephants.   So some  
Chinese are aware.  How do THEY propose to get the word out to those  
who buy ivory?


- Sandy



On Mar 18, 2013, at 2:36 PM, Sandra Maliga neor...@e.com wrote:


This is tragic and infuriating.

Why can't anyone tell the Chinese people that elephants are  
threatened? If elephants are extinct there will be NO MORE IVORY.  
Don't they have media in China? Get the word out.


Why don't the Chinese import some elephants and start their own  
herd? They could manage them carefully and eventually harvest ivory  
when the herd needs thinning. No matter the cost; demand for ivory  
will drive the price ever higher. They could promote homegrown  
ivory as superior.


 Documentaries shown in the US and Europe make us feel bad but  
don't save animals.   How about showing some documentaries in  
China?  How about a message on every cell phone in China?  I'd give  
money for that.


- Sandy Maliga




On Mar 18, 2013, at 11:02 AM, David Baker dbak...@hvc.rr.com wrote:


Esteemed cohorts everyone,

What I really love besides Experimental Film are Elephants.
I LOVE all Elephants but especially those that live free in the  
wild.

I love the complexity of elephant societies.

Something amazing to read is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_cognition

Something important to see is:
National Geographic - Battle For The Elephants (2013)

I hope everybody on this forum is aware of the horror that is  
happening to these animals right now, today.

More Elephants are being killed
than are being born. They are being wiped out, expunged from the  
earth.

The numbers of those massacred are crazy.
Last year 30,000 elephants were murdered.
The killing rate is accelerating. The New York Times describes it  
as a frenzy.
Horribly helicopters and machine guns do the job annihilating  
whole herds.

China is the problem.
The CHINESE demand the elephant's ivory tusks to make ludicrous  
carved luxury goods.


If there is hope it might be through FILM.

Apparently, ridiculously the burgeoning Chinese middle class  
thinks elephant tusks fall out naturally.

They call them elephant teeth.
Using film to educate in Africa and China may be the elephants  
last best hope.


The Experimental Film community can contribute importantly and  
make a difference.
Kickstarter it isn't, but If you want to help or know of a  
cognizant compassionate human being who does

please go here:


http://africanenvironmentalfilms.squarespace.com/donate

or here

http://www.savetheelephants.org/home.html


If you are a teacher please share

[Frameworks] The Elephant held vigil in Tennessee

[David Baker]

I expect most everybody has seen this.
Still I want to share this story, of an elephant and her unlikely best  
friend.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdzassDm7eM

this in the snow:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2NTOWmJ0gw

and a sad end:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57319021/tarra-and-bella-elephant-loses-mans-best-friend/

-DB

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Re: [Frameworks] drugged

[David Baker]

Thinking about the trope of the trip in the manner lets say  Amos  
Vogel's Cinema 16 might hypothetically have considered this theme:


I would suggest Tex Avery's King Size Canary (1947) in which an elixir  
called Jumbo-Gro allows for a mouse, a cat and a canary to move past  
each other in successive surrealistic expansions.
Juxtaposing this cartoon with the 1977 Eames Office's-  Powers of Ten:  
A Film Dealing with the Relative Size of Things in the Universe

and The Effect Of Adding Another Zero...
followed by the micro miniaturization in Fantastic Voyage (1966)  
described as the original psychedelic inner space adventure
might create the requisite loosening of strictures in the brain and  
concomitant mind manifesting tendencies.


Bob Clampett's black and white Porky in Wackyland and the color remake  
by Friz Freleng called Dough For The Do-Do (1949)

work for me. So does Chuck Jones's Duck Amuck (1953).

I'd even want to open the door to Duchamp's - Anemic Cinema (1926).

Tony Conrad's The Flicker (1966)
Jud Yalkut's - Kusama Self-Obliteration (1968)
Barbara Rubin's Christmas On Earth (1963)
are all obvious classics in the genre.

Importantly pioneer animator Emile Cohl's inventory of inebriation
The Hasher's Delirium (1910) should be considered.

Scott Nyerges's - Autumnal (2008) is hardcore, hallucinogenically  
speaking.


It is almost sacrilegious to mention Brakhage's The Dante Quartet in  
this context

but it never stops working on me in its hallucinatory majesty !
Once you see it you're never going to be the same.

Finally nobody has worked me harder in throwing down the psychotropic  
gauntlet more than

Ken Jacobs in his legendary Nervous System Performances of yore.
Truest to the phenomena-like Did you just see what I saw? nature of  
the drug experience,
this performative enterprise, since retired , was something you had to  
be there to believe.
Fundamentally my consciousness was altered many times over between the  
time I walked in the

door to one of these shows and when I went out.
I've never seen anything like it.
And never expect to again.

-DB

On Feb 9, 2013, at 2:40 PM, Eric Theise wrote:


Hello Frameworkers,

I'm hoping to get suggestions for studying the tropes of the trip,
that is to say, the way hallucinatory and other drug experiences have
been portrayed on-screen.  Flashy, over-the-top visual signifiers are
what I seek, but Frameworks excels at identifying examples that aren't
what the original poster had in mind, so please go to it!

Examples will be put to experimental purposes, but can come from any
genre, thanks in advance.

Hope all of you affected by the Nemo storm are okay and able to find
beauty in it.

--Eric
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Re: [Frameworks] Films composed to music

[David Baker]

A story told by poet Allen Ginsberg about his first meeting with Harry  
Smith immediately comes to mind:


He (Jordan Belson) told me enough about him so that when I was in New  
York later in 1959 I went to the Five Spot to listen to Thelonious  
Monk night after night. The Five Spot was then on the Bowery—a regular  
classic jazz club where once I saw Lester Young, and Monk was a reg­ 
ular for several months. And I noticed there was an old guy, with a  
familiar face, some­one I dimly recognized from a description,  
slightly hunchback, short, magical-looking, in a funny way gnomish or  
dwarfish, same time dignified. He was sitting at a table by the piano  
towards the kitchen making little marks on a piece of paper. I said to  
myself, Is that Harry Smith?—I'll go over and ask him. And it turned  
out to be Harry Smith. I asked him what he was doing, marking on the  
paper. He said he was calculating whether Thelonious Monk was hitting  
the piano before or after the beat—trying to notate the syn­copation  
of Thelonious Monk's piano. But I asked him why he was keeping this  
track record of the syncopation or retards that Monk was making, never  
coming quite on the beat but always aware of the beat. He said it was  
because he was calculating the variants. Then I asked him why he was  
interested in it, this is almost an Hermetic or magical study. I  
understood he was interested in Crowley, magic, in numbers, in  
esoteric systems, Theosophy, and he was also a member of the O.T.O.  
But he had practical use for it. He was making animated collages and  
he needed the exact tempo of Monk's changes and punctuations of time  
in order to synchronize the collages and hand-drawn frame-by­-frame  
abstractions with Monk's music. He was working frame-by-frame so it  
was possi­ble for him to do that, but he needed some kind of scheme.


Also see Oskar Fischinger's work:

Oskar prepared a film which was originally named Radio Dynamics,  
tightly synchronized to Ralph Rainger's tune Radio Dynamics. This  
short film was planned for inclusion in the feature film The Big  
Broadcast of 1937 (1936). Unfortunately, he found that Paramount had  
changed the film project from Technicolor to black-and-white. Also,  
Paramount printed the black-and-white version intercut with various  
live action images, so it was no longer totally abstract. Fischinger  
requested to be let out of his contract, and left Paramount. Several  
years later, with the help of Hilla von Rebay and a grant from the  
Museum of Non-Objective Painting, he was able to buy the film back  
from Paramount. Fischinger then redid and re-painted the cels, and  
made a color version to his satisfaction which he then called  
Allegretto. This became one of the most-screened and successful films  
of visual music's history, and one of Fischinger's most popular films.
Most of Fischinger's filmmaking attempts in America suffered  
difficulties. He composed An Optical Poem (1937) to Franz Liszt's  
Second Hungarian Rhapsody for MGM, but received no profits due to  
studio bookkeeping systems. He designed the J. S. Bach Toccata and  
Fugue in D Minor sequence for Walt Disney's Fantasia (1940), but quit  
without credit because all studio artists simplified and altered all  
his designs to be more representational. According to William Moritz,  
Fischinger contributed to the effects animation of the Blue Fairy's  
wand inPinocchio (1940).[5] In the 1950s, Fischinger did create  
several animated TV advertisements, including one for Muntz TV which  
unfortunately never aired due to the arrest of Muntz himself.
The Museum of Non-Objective Painting (later, The Guggenheim)  
commissioned him to synchronize a film with a march by John Philip  
Sousa in order to demonstrate loyalty to America, and then insisted  
that he make a film to Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, even though  
he wanted to make a film without sound in order to affirm the  
integrity of his non-objective imagery. Secretly, Fischinger composed  
the silent movie Radio Dynamics (1942).

-Wikipedia

An example from my own oeuvre constructed frame by frame in response  
and in relation to the sounds

of a musical composition by composer Florian Wittenburg:
https://vimeo.com/36494903
-DB
On Jan 9, 2013, at 6:06 PM, Mark Toscano wrote:

Grateful Dead (Robert Nelson) - Nelson made a tape collage from the  
Dead's first album (given to him on 1/4 by them) that ran about 8  
minutes, then cut his film very tightly to that tape piece.  When  
their second album came out, the Dead asked Bob to make a new  
soundtrack for the film, using the new album instead.  Although he  
did it out of friendship for them, he wasn't happy with it, as the  
cutting the image to the sound had been a really important concept  
for him in making the film.


“...” Reel Five (Stan Brakhage) - Cut to a pre-existing James Tenney  
piece (Flocking).  I suppose Christ Mass Sex Dance could also  
possibly qualify, but I 

Re: [Frameworks] new critical studies film course in car culture

[David Baker]

There is an auto-inquisition of sorts in John Carpenter's original 1976
Assault On Precinct 13 with a murderous episode at an ice cream truck
as catalyst. Terrific moments of terror are triggered when cars are  
simply

pushed from behind across a deserted parking lot.

Otherwise there is Lemmy Caution's Ford Galaxie 500 (Mustang)
standing in as a spaceship in Godard's Alphaville
and then too the Syd Mead designed Spinners
marvelous futuristic extrapolations of the automobile in Blade Runner.

I love the unique atmosphere established in scenes with stolen cars,
Louis Malle's Ascenseur pour l'echafaud (1958)
and of course with the car thief Belmondo plays in Breathless.

Now I am thinking too about the 1949 Buick Roadmaster Convertible  
driven in Rain Man,

and the yellow and white VW T2 Microbus
in Little Miss Sunshine.

-DB

On Dec 17, 2012, at 8:21 PM, Bryan Konefsky wrote:

Holy Canoli - I can't believe the response to my auto-inquiry!   
Thanks everyone for the suggestions - can't wait to dive into this  
new course!


best to everyone.
bryan konefsky




On Sun, Dec 16, 2012 at 8:03 PM, Chuck Kleinhans chuck...@northwestern.edu 
 wrote:

Late additions:
the new cult mumblecore film BELLFLOWER
Paul Schrader's 1978 film about auto workers: BLUE COLLAR




Chuck Kleinhans
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--
Bryan Konefsky
director, Experiments in Cinema
presidente, Basement Films
lecturer, Dept of Cinematic Arts UNM
visiting lecturer, UCSC
board of advisors, Ann Arbor Film Festival
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Re: [Frameworks] new critical studies film course in car culture

[David Baker]

Powerful automobile related imaginings occurred in the early sixties
beginning with Disney's flying car flubber apotheosis in The Absent  
Minded Professor (1961)
  followed by the anthropomorphic VW Herbie films beginning in 1963  
including The Love Bug (1968).
  If you will allow television episodes, the 1965 single season sitcom
My Mother The Car in which a man's mother is reincarnated as a 1928  
Porter Touring Car
might be considered.
The seriality in Andy Warhol's  Car Crash Paintings of 1963 might be  
thought of filmically.
The first appearance of the Munster's Koach in the television sitcom
The Munsters (1964-66) was a marvel merging hot rod hybridity and  
familial functionality,
Grandpa Munster's vehicle
called the Drag-u-la, from the episode called Hot Rod Herman was  
essentially a super charged coffin
on wheels,it also appeared in the 1966 film
Munster Go Home.

A precursor to the Munster Koach might be found in an uproarious
1934 episode of The Little Rascals
called Hi' Neighbor in which Spanky and his gang build a mad ad hoc  
fire truck
to meet the challenge of an affluent newcomer's girlfriend wooing toy  
car.

Not of the imagination but still interesting is a short film document  
on Youtube and elsewhere
of the first Indy 500 race, May 30,1911
complete with a spectacular accident.

The ecstatic (neon-lit?) cruising footage from Floyd Mutrux's Dusty  
and Sweets McGee (1971)
photographed by William A. Fraker
which is said to have influenced George Lucas's American Graffiti is a
personal favorite.

I can't fail to mention Kathryn Bigelow's The Loveless
and the unforgettable RV roving vampires in her Near Dark.

The car race in Rebel Without A Cause comes to mind.

I recollect a video Fred Worden exhibited at Anthology several years  
ago bound entirely
by travel in a moving automobile on a Thruway (the title escapes me).

Ernie Gehr's Auto-collider series.
(Additionally Ernie's digital interlaced masterpiece Crystal Palace  
(2002) was shot from the open
window of a moving car.)

Then there is Michael Bay's Transformers (2007) which I have not seen
but understand involves  four wheeled transformational entities.

-DB

On Dec 14, 2012, at 2:57 PM, Bryan Konefsky wrote:


 Hello Frameworkers - I am in the early moments of developing a  
 critical studies course that looks at different ways the automobile  
 has been imagined in cinema.  To this end I'd love to hear from  
 ya'll with titles of films that you think might be useful to explore/ 
 expand this idea and readings that might also dovetail themes that  
 might be explored.

 Do know that my pal Antoni Pinent recently turned me on to a great  
 text titled Car Fetish.

 OK, let's hear what ya got!
 best,
 -- 
 Bryan Konefsky
 director, Experiments in Cinema
 el presidente, Basement Films
 lecturer, Dept of Cinematic Arts UNM
 visiting lecturer, UCSC
 board of advisors, Ann Arbor Film Festival
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Re: [Frameworks] Flicker Films

[David Baker]

Considering Paul Sharits whole oeuvre
(with respect to Fred)

In particular:

N:O:T:H:I:N:G (1968)

Ray Gun Virus (1966)

Fluxfilm 27 / Dots 1  2 (1965)

Unrolling Event (1965)

Wrist Trick (1965)

Epileptic Seizure Comparison (1976)

-DB
On Apr 24, 2012, at 2:18 PM, Fred Camper wrote:

 Oh, and Stan Brakhage's The Process, combining fragments of  
 photographed
 images with solid-color frames that are rapidly edited.

 Fred Camper
 Chicago

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Re: [Frameworks] Robert Nelson

[David Baker]

Robert Nelson's work is an abiding source of inspiration
that never quits!

I was sixteen; OH DEM WATERMELONS was the first
underground/experimental/avant-garde
film I ever saw. Many years later WATERMELONS still stands as a  
benchmark

of achievement I may never equal but will always strive for.
 I knew about Duchamp, I knew about James Ensor,
I knew about the artist who worked for Mad Magazine,
but when I discovered Robert Nelson he sent me on my way.
He was an architect of sublime mirth and pure pleasures I had not  
imagined.

Off the wall or underwear,
Robert Nelson carries in his art all that the
counter culture should have been and then some.

Mark, your shining words properly testify.
Please bring his work to us on the god forsaken East Coast
so that we may know and verily celebrate
his vision.

I  am with the highest regard for he and you,

David Baker

On Jan 10, 2012, at 8:27 PM, Mark Toscano wrote:

Can't really express at all how very sad I am to report that Robert  
Nelson has died.  He was 81.  He had been diagnosed with terminal  
cancer about a year ago, and had decided to not receive treatment,  
to go out in his own way, as he could only do, as Chick Strand had  
decided to do before him.


All things considered, Bob was doing pretty well all year,  
actually.  He had moments, sometimes days, of fatigue and feeling  
kind of lousy, but had plenty of good days too.  I last spoke to him  
about a week ago and we talked about meeting up soon.  He sounded  
great, and was as sharp as ever.  So when I got the call from Wiley  
today, the news was a bit of a shock to me, as Bob had still seemed  
so vital and alive a week before.


He hadn’t been taking any medication or treatment beyond the herbal  
kind, and had continued to live on his own in the mountains in the  
small house he built in gorgeous Mendocino County.  An inimitably  
homespun and offhand philosopher, he would say things to me like,  
“what the hell, I’ve had a good run.”  I made him some CDs to check  
out a few months ago, and after he’d listened to and enjoyed them a  
few times he unexpectedly sent them back, saying “they were really  
good, I just don’t want to accumulate any more shit.”


Bob has easily been one of the most important people in my life, a  
massive source of influence, inspiration, support, friendship, and  
good company for the past ten years.  His films are still huge for  
me. and will be til I die.


I sought him out in 2001 when I worked at Canyon Cinema.  I had seen  
Bleu Shut and Hot Leatherette, and they had both knocked me out,  
especially Bleu Shut.  At the time, my friend Martha was a  
preservationist at the Academy Film Archive in L.A., and she and I  
concocted a proposal for Bob and the Academy to start getting his  
filmography preserved, film by film.  After he answered my initial  
letter, Bob and I had exchanged a few more letters (he was a great  
letter-writer) without yet meeting.  One day without warning, he  
just strolled into the Canyon office on Third.  Dominic hadn’t seen  
him in a few years at least, and said, almost in shock, “…Well hi,  
Bob!”  Bob and I met, had lunch and talked about the archiving  
thing, and a deal was hatched.  He was still very skeptical about  
the value of his work and his own desire for people to even see the  
films, but a project at the Academy was worked out, and Martha  
preserved The Off-Handed Jape and Deep Westurn right away, with Bob  
still not really wanting the films to see the light of day.  I took  
over when I was hired to replace her in ’03, when she left to work  
in Tanzania, and have worked on a bunch of ‘em since then.


Over the years, a certain visceral block about his films, a desire  
to destroy many of them or at least keep them withdrawn from view,  
loosened and relented, in some cases title by title.  I worked on  
him to do screenings, and though he wouldn’t initially appear in  
person, he approved the occasional showing of individual films  
starting in late 2003.  In 2004, with Craig Baldwin’s help, we were  
able to do a 3-day retrospective at Other Cinema, with Bob in  
person, which marked a big change in his attitude about the work.   
The voluminous positive feedback from audiences I was able to pass  
on encouraged him more and more to lighten up about it all.  He  
started making appearances, including some brilliant ones at  
Oberhausen, Vienna, and elsewhere.  He even started working on  
several new films (left uncompleted) in 2007 or so, one of which was  
a collaboration we discussed at length, and which I hope I can  
actually complete now.


I was always thrilled to pass word along to him about how much one  
or more of his films had influenced someone I’d met, because by the  
1990s, he had gotten really apathetic about a lot of them.  But the  
interest in his films over the past ten years was something he  
really enjoyed, and he came around to re-embracing many of his own  
films.  (Some of them

Re: [Frameworks] Robert Nelson

[David Baker]

typo gremlin in transmission:
please substitute
the plural, artists (not artist),
the artists who worked for Mad Magazine.
gracias

On Jan 11, 2012, at 12:11 PM, David Baker wrote:


Robert Nelson's work is an abiding source of inspiration
that never quits!

I was sixteen; OH DEM WATERMELONS was the first
underground/experimental/avant-garde
film I ever saw. Many years later WATERMELONS still stands as a  
benchmark

of achievement I may never equal but will always strive for.
 I knew about Duchamp, I knew about James Ensor,
I knew about the artist who worked for Mad Magazine,
but when I discovered Robert Nelson he sent me on my way.
He was an architect of sublime mirth and pure pleasures I had not  
imagined.

Off the wall or underwear,
Robert Nelson carries in his art all that the
counter culture should have been and then some.

Mark, your shining words properly testify.
Please bring his work to us on the god forsaken East Coast
so that we may know and verily celebrate
his vision.

I  am with the highest regard for he and you,

David Baker

On Jan 10, 2012, at 8:27 PM, Mark Toscano wrote:

Can't really express at all how very sad I am to report that Robert  
Nelson has died.  He was 81.  He had been diagnosed with terminal  
cancer about a year ago, and had decided to not receive treatment,  
to go out in his own way, as he could only do, as Chick Strand had  
decided to do before him.


All things considered, Bob was doing pretty well all year,  
actually.  He had moments, sometimes days, of fatigue and feeling  
kind of lousy, but had plenty of good days too.  I last spoke to  
him about a week ago and we talked about meeting up soon.  He  
sounded great, and was as sharp as ever.  So when I got the call  
from Wiley today, the news was a bit of a shock to me, as Bob had  
still seemed so vital and alive a week before.


He hadn’t been taking any medication or treatment beyond the herbal  
kind, and had continued to live on his own in the mountains in the  
small house he built in gorgeous Mendocino County.  An inimitably  
homespun and offhand philosopher, he would say things to me like,  
“what the hell, I’ve had a good run.”  I made him some CDs to check  
out a few months ago, and after he’d listened to and enjoyed them a  
few times he unexpectedly sent them back, saying “they were really  
good, I just don’t want to accumulate any more shit.”


Bob has easily been one of the most important people in my life, a  
massive source of influence, inspiration, support, friendship, and  
good company for the past ten years.  His films are still huge for  
me. and will be til I die.


I sought him out in 2001 when I worked at Canyon Cinema.  I had  
seen Bleu Shut and Hot Leatherette, and they had both knocked me  
out, especially Bleu Shut.  At the time, my friend Martha was a  
preservationist at the Academy Film Archive in L.A., and she and I  
concocted a proposal for Bob and the Academy to start getting his  
filmography preserved, film by film.  After he answered my initial  
letter, Bob and I had exchanged a few more letters (he was a great  
letter-writer) without yet meeting.  One day without warning, he  
just strolled into the Canyon office on Third.  Dominic hadn’t seen  
him in a few years at least, and said, almost in shock, “…Well hi,  
Bob!”  Bob and I met, had lunch and talked about the archiving  
thing, and a deal was hatched.  He was still very skeptical about  
the value of his work and his own desire for people to even see the  
films, but a project at the Academy was worked out, and Martha  
preserved The Off-Handed Jape and Deep Westurn right away, with Bob  
still not really wanting the films to see the light of day.  I took  
over when I was hired to replace her in ’03, when she left to work  
in Tanzania, and have worked on a bunch of ‘em since then.


Over the years, a certain visceral block about his films, a desire  
to destroy many of them or at least keep them withdrawn from view,  
loosened and relented, in some cases title by title.  I worked on  
him to do screenings, and though he wouldn’t initially appear in  
person, he approved the occasional showing of individual films  
starting in late 2003.  In 2004, with Craig Baldwin’s help, we were  
able to do a 3-day retrospective at Other Cinema, with Bob in  
person, which marked a big change in his attitude about the work.   
The voluminous positive feedback from audiences I was able to pass  
on encouraged him more and more to lighten up about it all.  He  
started making appearances, including some brilliant ones at  
Oberhausen, Vienna, and elsewhere.  He even started working on  
several new films (left uncompleted) in 2007 or so, one of which  
was a collaboration we discussed at length, and which I hope I can  
actually complete now.


I was always thrilled to pass word along to him about how much one  
or more of his films had influenced someone I’d met, because by the  
1990s, he had gotten really apathetic