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CVM
Collections: Access and Distribution - Film, Video, Digital Media
CVM provides access to Visual Music, abstract cinema and experimental
animation through a variety of activities. This page provides information
on:
- Curated Film
Programs: Optical Poetry: Oskar Fischinger Retrospective,
Mary Ellen Bute, Baerbel Neubauer, Legendary Light Shows, and 3 NEW
Essential Visual Music Programs - Rare Classics, New Visions and Early
Pioneers programs. Plus lectures and presentations.
- Online
Store
(research copies on video and DVD)
- Selected print rentals
and archival loans
- On-site
Research
- Licensing
for Museum Exhibitions
For Other Information
on Special Collections (Paper, Monograph and other materials), please
visit our Collections
and Archives page. For research material, you may wish to start
with our Online
Library.
1. Curated
Film Programs available for booking
Oskar
Fischinger Retrospective
: Optical Poetry

- Featuring 35mm
prints of Fischinger's classic visual music films, including Allegretto,
Study No. 6, Study No. 7, Radio Dynamics, Composition in Blue, Motion
Painting No. 1, Kreise, American March, Spirals, Coloratura, Spiritual
Constructions, Walking from Munich to Berlin, and others. Most
are preserved or new prints. Provided in association with the Fischinger
Archive. Includes prints preserved by Academy Film Archive, Center
for Visual Music and Fischinger Archive, with the support of Film
Foundation, Sony, Cinémathèque québécoise and Deutsches Filmmuseum.
- Program is approx. 70 minutes, 35mm
Rental is subject
to conditions including the screening of the complete show, with no
re-ordering or re-assembling. Qualified institutions must certify that
they do not use a platter projection system and are capable of archival
projection standards. See bottom of page for notes on qualified institutions.*
The prints are generally not rented separately. This program cannot
be provided on video or DVD.
Essential
Visual Music: Rare Classics -
NEW
Program, May 2008
From German pioneers
to Light Show psychedelia to Experimental Animation classics, rare
and preserved prints from the Center for Visual Music Archive.
Includes films by Oskar and Hans Fischinger, Charles
Dockum, Jules Engel, Mary Ellen Bute, light show films and more. 16mm,
80 mins. Please read the full
program description. Recently presented at UCLA Film and Television
Archive/Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.
Reviewed by Danni
Zuvela in "The Musicality of the Moving Image" in realtime onscreen,
Brisbane: "... consciousness-expanding variety of psychedelia
and its various cinematic and machinic iterations by generations of
artists, filmmakers and scientists. The incredible Rare Classics program,
curated by GoMA guest Cindy Keefer of the Center for Visual Music
in LA, was a prime example of the kaleidoscopic approach to moving
abstraction by numerous artists in the early-to-mid 20th century.
The Rare Classics program abounded with priceless opportunities to
witness the genre's often-referred-to-but-rarely-seen works, such
as John Stehura's pioneering (1960-1965) computer animation, Cibernetik
5.3, Jud Yalkut's decidedly brown-acid Turn, Turn, Turn
(1966) and some mind-blowing footage from early expanded cinema performances.
Along with the unforgettable experience of witnessing the 'recreation'
film of Oskar Fischinger's R-1 ein Formspiel (c1926-1933),
from his 1920s (!) multiple-projector performances … there was extraordinary
conservation footage of Charles Dockum's 1952 MobilColor Performance
at the Guggenheim Museum.
Essential
Visual Music: New Visions- New
Program,
2008
Contemporary work
in Visual Music and Abstract Animation, digital and 16mm, Approx 80
minutes.. Please
read the full
program description
Jordan
Belson: FIlms Sacred and Profane -
please inquire re conditions
for screening. 16mm and digital. CVM's Belson Retrospective programs
have been presented recently at MOCA Los Angeles, Rotterdam Film Festival,
GoMA Brisbane Australia's Visual Music festival, and the European Media
Art Festival, Osnabruck, Germany.
Mary
Ellen Bute Program
Includes all of
Bute's Abstract Films. Known for her pioneering early abstract films
(some of which were screened regularly at Radio City Music Hall, New
York in the 1930s), and one of the first artists to use oscilloscopes,
she is also known for her collaborations with Norman McLaren and Leon
Theremin, among others. Program features all of her short abstract
films. 16mm prints. Rhythm in Light, 1934; Synchromy
No. 2, 1935; Dada, 1936; Parabola, 1937; Escape,
1937; Spook Sport (with animation by Norman McLaren), 1939;
Tarantella, 1940; Polka Graph, 1947; Color
Rhapsody, 1948; Imagination, 1948; New Sensations in
Sound, 1949 (RCA Commercial); Pastorale, 1950; Abstronic,
1952 and Mood Contrasts. Organized by CVM in association with
Cecile Starr and Women's Independent Film Exchange. 16mm. Recently
screened in Los Angeles, Chicago, Ithaca New York, Australia and Germany.
Legendary
Light Shows (16mm and
video)

Flashback to the
1960's with a program of rarely seen film and video by legendary light
show artists from San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles: Glenn
McKay, Tony Martin, Elias Romero, Joshua White, Single Wing Turquoise
Bird, Jud Yalkut and others, plus the light show finale excerpt from
David Lebrun's Hog Farm Movie. Featuring light, color and liquid
projections layered with film and handmade slides, originally performed
live at rock concerts. Selections from this program were featured
in the 2005 US exhibition "Visual Music" at the Hirshhorn Museum and
MOCA LA. This program screened at the Rotterdam International Film
Festival, 2006, San Francisco in August 2008 at Yerba Buena Center
for the Arts; Cornell Cinema 2008, and at various other venues. Program
approx. one hour. 16mm and video; includes new preservation print
of Yalkut's Turn, Turn, Turn.

Legendary
Light Show images - Top, courtesy Elias Romero, Joshua White, Tony
Martin. Bottom, from Single Wing Turquoise Bird, courtesy Peter Mays

Time
and Tides - Music Paintings by Baerbel Neubauer
(35mm and DVD, 75 min. program)
- Featuring 35mm
prints of Neubauer's direct on film animations (approx 26 minutes),
plus New Digital work, 2004-present.
-
-
Algorithmen (1994, 3:17)
Falter-Spot 7 (1994, 0:30)
Roots (1996, 3:40)
Mondlicht (Moonlight) (1997, 4:11)
Holiday (1998, 4:30)
Feuerhaus (Firehouse) (1998, 5:20)
Passage (2002, 8:02)
 
- Flockenspiel
I-IV (2004, DVD): ...an associative journey from 2D to 3D
through abstract digital images and music. The images were digitally
handpainted with brushes of colours, forms and effects. (BN). The
Soundtrack for Flockenspiel III was also painted digitally. 25 minutes,
screened on DVD. Gallery
of Flockenspiel images
- Plus excerpt(s)
from her new digital works-in-progress.
NOTE: The 35mm
prints may be rented as a separate program, without the digital work.
As of Sept. 2008, Algorithmen is currently only available digitally,
not currently on 35mm, pending lab work.
This program recently
screened at The Gallery of Modern Art, Queensland
Essential
Visual Music: Early Pioneers - NEW
Program
Early
Visual Music Pioneers: Eggeling,
Ruttman and Richter, all 16mm. Films include: Ruttmann's
Opus I, II, III and IV (1921-25); Eggeling's Symphonie
Diagonale, Richter's Rhythmus 21, Rhythmus 23, Filmstudie,
Ghosts Before Breakfast, Inflation, Everything Turns, Race Symphony
and Two-Penny Magic; plus Cecile Starr's documentary Richter
on Film (1972, 14 min). All b/w except Richter on Film documentary,
color. Curated by, and presented in association with, Film historian
Cecile Starr.
Other
Programs and Lectures
- Illustrated Talk
by Ms. Keefer of CVM: Raumlichtkunst to Vortex:
Early Expanded Cinema Experiments of Oskar Fischinger and Jordan Belson
(presented at Tate Modern, April 2009). Powerpoint and 35mm.
- Screening and
Lectures: Music for the Eyes,
selections of old and new Visual Music films ("greatest hits"),
presented in 2008-09 at UC Riverside, USC, Cal Arts and UCLA Media/Arts.
- Illustrated
Presentation: Projected Light and
Color: Early Visual Music Color Organs and Light Shows
(presented at British Film Institute/Optronica Festival, London, 2007).
Powerpoint, 16mm and DVD lecture.
From the first
known colour organ experiments in the 1700s, to Oskar Fischinger's
multiple projector light shows of the mid 1920s, through to some legendary
1960s light shows; key examples of visual music's long, rich but little
known history will be explored in this talk. Presented by Cindy Keefer
from the LA based Center for Visual Music and illustrated by slides
and rare film footage, the talk contextualises colour organs and light
shows as precursors to modern VJ and audiovisual culture. (from Optronica
Festival Program)
- Inquire re the
Alexander Alexeieff/Claire Parker program (North America, Asia
only), 16mm.
Also see our previous
programs including:
Visual
Music 1 (screened at MOCA)
Visual
Music 2 (screened at LA Filmforum)
Booking
inquiries: Email
Center for Visual Music
cvmaccess(at)gmail(dot)com
Please provide
details including whether your organization is a nonprofit or for-profit
organization; date(s) and number of screenings requested; size of
screening room (seats). Please note, we do not rent to individuals,
only to qualified organizations.*
We cannot provide
these curated Film Programs for exhibition on DVD (exceptions include
Neubauer's new films, on PAL DVD; and selected new work from the New
Visions program).
For other recent Visual
Music programs curated and presented by CVM, please see our Screenings
page; for details regarding our work and films in the 2005 Visual Music
exhibition at MOCA LA and Hirshhorn/Smithsonian, please see Visual
Music films
2.
Online Store
CVM's
online Store offers
Research Copies of films on video and DVD. These are for private home
use or classroom use only, and most may not be exhibited publicly for
a paying audience, or used in museum exhibitions or public screenings
without additional permissions, fees and/or licenses. Please inquire
if you wish to obtain permission for additional uses. These DVDs, videos
and books are also available for purchase via telephone, or at our downtown
Los Angeles offices.
3. Print loans and rentals
Under certain conditions,
CVM provides access to selected prints from our preservation projects
through rentals to qualified institutions. Some of these include:
- Films by Jules
Engel (Accident, Three Arctic Flowers, Celebration, Mobiles,
Play Pen, Times Square, Coaraze, Landscape). FIlm only,
not available on video or DVD at present.
- Charles Dockum
films (1952 Mobilcolor Performance at the Guggenheim; 1966
Mobilcolor Documentary and Performance films; 1970 extended
Mobilcolor Performance film).
- John Stehura's
Cibernetik 5.3 (currently available only on videotape or DVD)
- Selected Fischinger
35mm prints including Radio Dynamics
4.
On-Site Research
Viewing copies (on
video or dvd) of many films are available for onsite study by researchers
and scholars at CVM's offices in downtown Los Angeles in the Gallery
Row Arts District. Please email or call for an appointment.
CVM does not make or provide dubs of these research copies; please see
our online Store for available titles for research purposes.
5.
Licensing for Museum Exhibitions and Installations
Certain films (including
those by Fischinger and Belson) may be licensed under very
specific
conditions. Please provide complete
details of your exhibition including description of the space
planned for exhibiting films or digital media (what else will be in
this space? are there black or white walls? describe lighting levels,
etc.); type of projection and screen, or type of monitor; plans for
avoiding light and sound leaks; list of other planned films in the exhibition;
full list of venues and dates, licensing fees budgeted. We cannot
process requests without all of the above information. Email to
cvmaccess (at) gmail.com
Please note that
many requests are not approved due to insufficient information, unacceptable
spaces, or lack of preparation time. All requests are subject to loan
and technical prep fees.
More about CVM's
Collections
and Archives
Please direct all
inquiries to
Center
for Visual Music
Via email: CVM
Via phone (downtown Los Angeles office) 213-683-1514
*Qualified institutions include
FIAF archives and venues capable of archival projection, and institutions
which have previously rented programs from us without damage to any
films. Please email for further information.
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