Lecture series “Art and the Moving Image” Bruce Elder Electrology and Electromorphic Art

Canadian filmmaker and scholar Bruce Elder will give a talk on May 2 from 10:00 to 11:30 a.m. in Seminar Room 21, Vordere Zollamtsstraße 7, fourth floor.
https://rbruceelder.com/

Renowned New York filmmaker Jonas Mekas hailed Bruce Elder as “the most significant North American avant-garde filmmaker of the 1980s.” Elder’s artistic prowess is evident in his unique blend of images, music, and text, which he masterfully weaves together to explore themes from philosophy, technology, science, spirituality, and the human body.

In his talk, Elder will situate the new media of electromagnetic flows, or what he calls “electrology.” He will identify the characteristics of electromorphic art, and show that the new digital media (electric sounds accompanied by dynamic visual forms) should be situated within the arts of interpenetration. Elder believes in the “sound first” principle—that this new medium is decidedly not an extension of silent-film-become-sound-film, but is a new medium with its own distinctive attributes, that its oral-aural elements have precedents over other components in the multi-focal, multi-modal, multi-sensory assemblages this new electric medium invites. He will also point out how this has led to new ideas regarding aesthetic effect, which sees artworks as operating viscerally, essentially, by electromagnetic induction. He will also show how these ideas about this new medium have influenced his own media making. The vertical film strip above shows selected images from the “death camp” section of “What Troubles the Peace at Brandenburg?” (Bruce Elder, 2011).