Foregrounds (1978)
Pat O'Neill
A window is inset with shifting geometric paintings; a giant boulder revolves over a desert view painted by Neon Park; and an endless film loop rotates around a tree branch. In O'Neill's work, the West Coast is certainly made to appear strange.
16 mm film, color, sound 14 minutes
© Pat O'Neill
Olivia's Place (1966)
Thom Andersen
Thom Andersen knew that Olivia’s Place would soon be gone, so he decided to make a film in order to save something of it for the future.
16 mm film, color, sound 6 minutes
© Thom Andersen
Kitsch in Synch (1975)
Adam K. Beckett
The chaotic and colorful animation in Kitsch in Synch features densely overlapping forms set to an energetic, goofy soundtrack. This film was created collaboratively with a class taught by Beckett at the California Institute of the Arts.
16 mm film, color, sound 5 minutes
© The iotaCenter. Courtesy of The iotaCenter.
Hand Held Day (1975)
Gary Beydler
An entire Arizona day in six minutes of Kodachrome, breathtakingly contained by a small mirror held in the filmmaker’s hand.
16 mm film, color, silent 6 minutes
© Gary Beydler. Courtesy of Mike and David Beydler
Hand Held Day (1975)
Gary Beydler
An entire Arizona day in six minutes of Kodachrome, breathtakingly contained by a small mirror held in the filmmaker's hand.
16 mm film, color, silent 6 minutes
© Gary Beydler. Courtesy of Mike and David Beydler
Picture and Sound Rushes (1973)
Morgan Fisher
In a static medium shot, a narrator seated at a table delivers an explanation of the combinations and permutations that the sound and picture elements of the conventional monochromatic sound motion picture afford, as the film itself undergoes them.
16 mm film, black and white, sound 11 minutes
© 1973 Morgan Fisher
Standard Gauge (1984)
Morgan Fisher
Standard Gauge is composed of one long piece of 16 mm film, many short pieces of 35 mm film—found footage—not vivified by projection but presented as a succession of objects. The piece is partly autobiographical and partly a history of a technological artifact and the institution of which it is the foundation, the commercial motion picture industry.
16 mm film, color, sound 35 minutes
© 1984 Morgan Fisher
Fragment of Seeking (1946)
Curtis Harrington
A young man's confusion and fear about love and death are elegantly explored in this eerie classic of experimental psychodrama.
16 mm film, black and white, sound 14 minutes
Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Fragment of Seeking (1946)
Curtis Harrington
A young man's confusion and fear about love and death are elegantly explored in this eerie classic of experimental psychodrama
16 mm film, black and white, sound 14 minutes
Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Death of the Gorilla (1965)
Peter Mays
Peter Mays achieved these hypnotically dense and hallucinatory in-camera superimpositions by shooting off the TV with color filters, then editing the mass of footage into a surrealistic narrative.
16 mm film, color, silent 16 minutes
© 2011 Peter Mays
Working Upside-Down: Recent films by Pat O'Neill, Sunday, October 3rd (date unknown)
Independent Film Oasis
A poster from the Independent Film Oasis screening series, a venue that screened films by Los Angeles avant-garde filmmakers such as Pat O'Neill.
© Independent Film Oasis. Courtesy of Pat O'Neill.
7362 (1966)
Pat O'Neill
Pat O’Neill’s celebrated mindbomb, this L.A. film launched a thousand other films. Contact printing, hand processing, and solarization mix in a bizarre, hallucinatory visual feast.
16 mm film, color, sound 10 minutes
© Pat O'Neill
By the Sea (1962)
Pat O'Neill
Pat O’Neill’s By the Sea, his first film (made with Robert Abel), is an observation and transformation of the fascinating forms to be found at Muscle Beach, Venice, in 1963.
16 mm film, color, sound 10 minutes
© Pat O'Neill
Yantra (1955)
James Whitney
Meticulously animated dots explode and recede on screen to form color-shifting patterns, textures, and mandala-like shapes in this classic of abstract animation.
16 mm film, color, sound 7 minutes
© Estate of John and James Whitney, all rights reserved. Courtesy of John Whitney, Jr.
Sidewinder's Delta (1976)
Pat O'Neill
Images of the desert landscape come together in a complex push and pull between representation and optically manipulated visual abstraction.
16 mm film, color, sound 20 minutes
© Pat O'Neill
Photograph of the Coronet Theater (early 1950s)
Danny Rouzer
The Coronet was a venue that screened avant-garde film shorts beginning in the 1950s.
Image courtesy of Janet Rouzer © Danny Rouzer
Shopper's Market (1963)
John Vicario
Eschewing the obvious Pop potential of a Southern California supermarket, this multipart work employs an intelligently observant and anthropological approach as it captures the movements and behavior of people in the midst of rampant, surreal consumerism.
16 mm film, color, sound 22 minutes
© John Vicario
Shopper's Market (1963)
John Vicario
Eschewing the obvious Pop potential of a Southern California supermarket, this multipart work employs an observant and anthropological approach as it captures the movements and behavior of people in the midst of rampant, surreal consumerism.
16 mm film, color, sound 22 minutes
© John Vicario
Film Achers (1976)
Beth Block
Sequences of filmmakers at work are optically printed to visually deconstruct their repetitive movements while engaged in the postproduction process.
16 mm film, color, sound 10 minutes
© Beth Block 2011
