Imagination and Technique :
Process Based Art and Minimalism
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Experimental abstract film and animation
Looks like stuff we can do in processing
 Explores ideas of the relationship between visual
movement and music
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Dada – Absurdist political art – activism
Op-art
 Materialism
 Richter, Eggeling, Man Ray
 Early ‘systems based’ art i.e. Tristan Tzara – “The Cut up”
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Bauhaus – Gropius, Kandinsky, Klee, MoholyNagy,
Early Computer Graphics - Whitney
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Synthesis – “Point and Line to Plane”, Kandinsky
(1926)
Fundamental elements of design –
The Point
 Line (force between connecting points)
 Plane (The Background)
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For Kandinsky, Lines of different orientations
had different subjective meanings – or
‘tonalities’
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Moholy-Nagy “Lichtspiel”
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Constructivism ?
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Emphasis on Technology in Creative Acts
Importance of the Machine – mechanisation
Engineering principles as the basis of Art
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Is this the basis of Art?
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What about Duchamp?
What about Kandinsky?
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Experimental Animator
“Absolute Cinema” (non objective)
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What do we mean by non-objective ?
What is the point?
“Grandfather of the Digital Arts”
“Fantasia” (1940)
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John and James Whitney
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“5 Abstract Film Exercises” 1940-45
Early Minimal, process-based art
Pantographs of Moving colour with sound
 What is a pantograph?
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Winner, First International Experimental Film
Competition in Belgium, 1949
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Strip back all elements to basic form and
technique
Deploy ideas in the most simple way possible
Make ideas and concepts visible in work
through simplicity
Movements in Music, Painting, Sculpture and
Animation.
Is Fischinger Minimalist?
Is Whitney Minimalist?
Bauhaus ?
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Artist whose work is characterised by minimalism
Unit Shape – A basic shape for the extension of a
set of ideas or works.
Lewitt’s Unit Shape == Cube.
Serial Project – “Incomplete Open Cubes”
Variations on open cubes can be used to generate
lots of interesting shapes : Think about how simple
this is.
What is a ‘Permutation’ ?
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What is special about drawing a Cube?
How many dimensions does a cube have?
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How many dimensions do we draw in?
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What problems does this present?
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Does this change the way we have to think about
drawing?
More about Escher later