prosthetic knowledge
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Pictures from a Gallery by Lillian Schwartz
A recent upload from computer artist pioneer’s YouTube account - a film from 1976 of computer processed photographs of the artist’s family. Embedded below:
From her website:
Music by Albert Miller. Picture-processed photos from the artist-filmmaker’s family. Faces are abstracted in a divisionistic manner. “… one of the great motion pictures of our time. While embracing the full range of human activity from cradle to old age, the production illuminates with deep feeling the many elements of present-day technology in filmmaking and the expanded cinema. It is truly a work of genius.” – John W. L. Russell, International Media Coordinator, USIA. Awards – Golden Eagle-Cine 1976; Grenoble Film Festival Award 1976, International Women’s Film Festival 1976. Cannes Film Festival. (7 min.)
PK Note: What I found interesting (other than the obvious filter-like contemporary conversion of the images) is the many technologies this film has gone through to arrive here, on a webpage via YouTube, and that can still be considered part of the conceptual piece. Here we have computer-manipulated imagery that was transferred and edited onto film, which since has been transferred to digital media (as you will notice in the last 30 seconds, unintentionally becoming part of the experience of the work), then put online.
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Rhizome: Prosthetic Knowledge Picks - The Female Pixel
A digest of links on the idea of ‘The Female Pixel’, including (on Tumblr) FM Towns Marty, Sheroes, V5MT, PartyTime! Hexellent.
It also features Lillian Schwartz, Waldemar Cordeiro, Jovi Xu, and Christian Zander.
You can read the whole thing here
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The Artist And Computer
Important short film for anyone interested in the history of computer graphics and computer art. I’ve previously posted this before, but this is the full version recently uploaded by the artist on her YouTube channel.
Filmed in 1976 for Bell Labs as an educational film. Portland Art describes her best:
As a consultant at Bell Laboratories in the 1970s, Schwartz developed computerized techniques for merging sound, art and video. Her innovative research makes her the grand dame of computer-generated art and computer-aided art analysis… including contemporary film, video, animation, graphics, multimedia, special effects and virtual reality.
“In the traditional of ‘visual music,’ her work from this period features animated computer-based shapes and fields— transformed through color gels and film stock— that synch, pulse, and grow to the equally distinct and complex computer and electronic soundtracks.”You can find out more about her from her website, her Wikipedia entry, or her entry from the Artist and Computer book online
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Olympiad by Lillian Schwartz
Early computer animation from 1973. Retro pixel aesthetics.
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Googolplex by Lillian Schwartz
Early computer animation from 1973. Abstract and monochromatic. Probably not suited for epilepsy sufferers due to flashing colours.
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Lillian Schwartz - The Artist and the Computer
1976 documentary about Lillian Schwartz’s work with computers and features excerpts from several of her films (in 2 parts - alltogether 10 minutes long)
Fascinating look into the production of early computer art - the amount of work and creativity with the technology is impressive.
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Pixillation by Lillian Schwartz (1970) - early computer animated film (4 minutes)
“With computer-produced images and Moog-synthesized sound Pixillation is in a sense an introduction to the electronics lab. But its forms are always handsome, its colors bright and appealing, its rhythms complex and inventive.” - Roger Greenspun, N. Y. Times. Golden Eagle-Cine 1971. Moog sound by Gershon Kingsley; Version III: pulls the viewer into a primal experience. Awards:Red Ribbon Award for Special Effects from The National Academy of Television, Arts & Sciences; The Smithsonian Institution and The United States Department of Commerce, Travel Services for Man & His World at the Montreal Expo, ‘71; collection The Museum of Modern Art. Commissioned by AT&T. (4 min.)
Posted from UBUWeb - for education purposes
