Movies: Tony Conrad

Filmmaker and artist Jack Smith described his own film as a “comedy set in a haunted movie studio.” Flaming Creatures begins humorously enough with several men and women, mostly of indeterminate gender, vamping it up in front of the camera and partic...

Mrs. Claus complains because Santa is away....

Made out of six patterns of alternating black and white imposed upon the full surface of the film strip....

This version of the Dick and Jane and Baby Sally tale was influenced by Dorothy Bloch, who stresses the role of childhood fear that the parent will kill the child. An alternative title, “The Scissors Bird,” is intended as a reference to “The Story of...

“A man, an accordion, a ladder, and a video camera. It’s as simple as that.” - Andrew Lampert...

A machine-gun film roll of 4-X negative film was exposed using pressure (hammering) and was flashed in its exploded physical configuration....

A young woman, on the brink of sexual awakening, is shocked by the presence of her mother in bed. The imagined presence of the mother's body haunts all further sexual encounters and desire, directing and controlling the scene of passion. Writes Zando...

Negative image is shot from a small rear-projection screen, the film comes out of the camera continuously (in the dark room) and is immediately processed, dried, and projected on the screen....

Tony Conrad interviewed on the streets of NYC....

Based on the ideas of Russian philosopher, Nikolai Fedorov, Anton Vidokle’s film was shot in Siberia, Crimea, and Kazakhstan. Fedorov, like others, believed that death was a mistake, “because the energy of cosmos is indestructible, because true relig...

"A curiosity, Movie Show looks backward to the era of structural films, particularly Ken Jacobs’s Tom, Tom, the Piper’s Son. The clip of film used in this performance is taken from my Articulation of Boolean Algebra for Film Opticals, the work with w...

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The visual track of Weak Bodies and Strong Wills comes from my 1973 film, Enlightenment through Experience: Interim Semester at Albright College. The found film images had been kept in a closet at Albright College, where I was invited to teach a work...

Tradition, mystical revelation, the passing on of family secrets--all that is lost in translation. In this magical fairytale Grandma Baba struggles with the impossibility of telling what needs to be told. How can she pass on the traditions and storie...

This exquisite single shot is a complement to Combat Status Go. Here the viewer is positioned casually, even though every other element in the film experiences a painful precision: piano, gun, wardrobe; conversation directed at (and across the bow of...

“A theory discourse among three participants, enacted in silhouette.” –Tony Conrad...

A short video by Tony Conrad....

Originally debuted in 1977, where it took the form of a dual slide projection with live piano accompaniment by the artist. In the 2012 installation version at the Buffalo AKG, the slides were transferred to digital projection and Conrad’s live accomp...

“Cycles of 3s and 7s is a doubled statement. First and foremost, it is a commentary on computer art and the role of computers in video. Secondly, its arithmetic project has some bearing on the construction of musical scales. In reclaiming the compute...

Straight and Narrow is a study of subjective colour and visual rhythm, although it is printed on black and white film, the hypnotic pacing of the images will cause most viewers to experience a programmed gamut of hallucinatory colour effects. Through...