Skip to content


During Animated Encounters, we are delighted to welcome Cindy Keefer, archivist and curator from the Center for Visual Music, LA, to present an illustrated lecture (6.30pm) and introduce a rare screening of Jordan Belson’s visionary films (8.00pm).

To purchase a package deal to see both the lecture and screening for £8/£6, please contact Arnolfini Box Office on 0117 917 2300.

6.30pm –

Pioneers of Pre-Digital Cinema and Kinetic Art: The Archives of Center for Visual Music 

Illustrated lecture: Cindy Keefer, archivist and curator, will discuss and screen work by pioneers of kinetic art and visual music from CVM’s archives. She will discuss Jordan Belson’s Vortex Concerts, the Oskar Fischinger legacy and Raumlichtkunst, the new nitrate to HD reconstruction of Fischinger’s 1920s multiple-projector cinema performances. Work presented from the archives will include Charles Dockum’s Mobilcolor Projector Performance, an early oscilloscope film by Mary Ellen Bute, two preserved 35mm films by Fischinger, and more.

8.00pm –

Jordan Belson Retrospective: Films Sacred and Profane

Born in Chicago and raised in the Bay Area, Jordan Belson trained as a painter before turning his attention to filmmaking after discovering the abstract films of Oskar Fischinger and Norman McLaren. Since 1947, Belson has explored consciousness, transcendence, and the nature of light itself in a visionary body of work that has been called ‘cosmic cinema’: brimming with vibrant color, mandalas, liquid forms and mesmerising rhythms. This program features new 16mm preserved prints and rarely seen films including Caravan, Seance, Chakra, Momentum, Light, Cycles and more.  Introduced by Cindy Keefer, curator/archivist.


Presented by Center for Visual Music

CVM is an archive dedicated to visual music and abstract cinema, which preserves and promotes films by Fischinger, Belson, Dockum, Bute, Jules Engel, The Whitney Brothers and others of the visual music tradition, plus artwork and historical documentation. CVM also curates contemporary work, organizes museum exhibitions, and distributes DVD compilations.

Visit the CVM website.

 

Please note, there will be a 30 minute interval between the illustrated lecture and Jordan Belson screening.