Euclidean Illusions: Geometries of the Avant-Garde

Beginning with Hans Richter’s very first film, Rhythmus 21, the medium was reimagined as a moving canvas onto which the filmmaker could paint their own world of forms, detached from a physical reality beyond the screen. Or, in the case of Marie Menken’s Visual Variations on Noguchi, Shirley Clarke’s Bridges-Go-Round, or Ken Kobland’s Library, the screen became a way to distill the geometric elements of real-life sculpture and architecture into a pure aesthetic experience outside of material function. This sampling closes with a look toward the creative possibilities of computer animation, realized during Stan VanDerBeek’s artistic residency at NASA in Houston.