Arabesque (1975)

James Whitney' shorts are visually based on modernist composition theory with carefully varied permutation of forms manipulated with cut-out masks. He pursue technological, theoretical, mathematical, architectonic and musical ideas which eventually led him to his masterful pioneer work in computer graphics. Meanwhile, Whitney became increasingly involved in contemplative, spiritual interests.



With Arabesque, Whitney demonstrated the principle of harmonic progression, experimenting with the eccentricities of Islamic architecture, which, though ultimately harmonic, contain many characteristic reverse curves in its embellishments.

Biogenesis (1995)

William Latham is best known for his pioneering work in evolutionary art which he collaboratively produced with IBM UK between 1987 and 1993. Subsequently he worked in the computer games industry, exploring the use of artificial intelligence techniques. Now Latham has re-emerged into the public conscience with a return to his earlier evolutionary art
Biogenesis shows the evolution of artificial life forms in a synthetic universe where ‘survival of the fittest’ is replaced by ‘survival of the most aesthetic‘. We see cellular evolution and the replication of mutations forming chain-like structures resembling coral.



Survival of the most aesthetic in a synthetic digital universe of constantly evolving coral forms. From cell to psychedelic, this is DNA with attitude, and a reply to all those who did not think there could be life in the machine.
long synopsis
It can be viewed as a psychedelic experience or a more subtle parody of a man’s relationship with the natural world through modern technology.

Felix in Exile (1994)

Felix in Exile is the fifth of eight films that complete the Drawings for Projection series, on which William Kentridge worked from 1989 to 1999. All the films consist of 30 to 40 charcoal drawings, and they transport poetic and political stories. As a South African, Kentridge is very conscious of his country’s history and its colonial past.
This short tells the stories of Felix, a man living in exile in Paris, and of Nandi, a woman working as a land surveyor. The woman is Felix’s alter ego. She stands for the longing for one’s homeland, and how for his sake someone bears witness to the incidents in the new, democratic South Africa.



Fundamental is the concepts of time and change. Kentridge conveys it through his erasure technique, which contrasts with conventional cel-shaded animation, whose seamlessness de-emphasizes the fact that it is actually a succession of hand-drawn images. This he implements by drawing a key frame, erasing certain areas of it, re-drawing them and thus creating the next frame. He is able in this way to create as many frames as he wants based on the original key frame simply by erasing small sections. Traces of what has been erased are still visible to the viewer: as the films unfold, a sense of fading memory or the passing of time and the traces it leaves behind are portrayed.
In the same way that there is a human act of dismembering the past there is a natural process in the terrain through erosion, growth, dilapidation that also seeks to blot out events. In South Africa this process has other dimensions. The term New South Africa has within it the idea of a painting over the old, the natural process of dismembering, the naturalization of things new.

Felix in Exile (1994)

Felix in Exile is the fifth of eight films that complete the Drawings for Projection series, on which William Kentridge worked from 1989 to 1999. All the films consist of 30 to 40 charcoal drawings, and they transport poetic and political stories. As a South African, Kentridge is very conscious of his country’s history and its colonial past.
This short tells the stories of Felix, a man living in exile in Paris, and of Nandi, a woman working as a land surveyor. The woman is Felix’s alter ego. She stands for the longing for one’s homeland, and how for his sake someone bears witness to the incidents in the new, democratic South Africa.



Fundamental is the concepts of time and change. Kentridge conveys it through his erasure technique, which contrasts with conventional cel-shaded animation, whose seamlessness de-emphasizes the fact that it is actually a succession of hand-drawn images. This he implements by drawing a key frame, erasing certain areas of it, re-drawing them and thus creating the next frame. He is able in this way to create as many frames as he wants based on the original key frame simply by erasing small sections. Traces of what has been erased are still visible to the viewer: as the films unfold, a sense of fading memory or the passing of time and the traces it leaves behind are portrayed.
In the same way that there is a human act of dismembering the past there is a natural process in the terrain through erosion, growth, dilapidation that also seeks to blot out events. In South Africa this process has other dimensions. The very term 'new South Africa' has within it the idea of a painting over the old, the natural process of dismembering, the naturalization of things new.

Pixillation (1970)

Lillian Schwartz is an artist, filmmaker, art historian, researcher and theorist. She was involved with the seminal Experiments in Art and Technology group in 1968, which led to her computer-based sculpture Proxima Centauri being selected for the Museum of Modern Art.




With computer-produced images and Moog-synthesized sound Pixillation is in a sense an introduction to the electronics lab. But its forms are always handsome, its colors bright and appealing, its rhythms complex and inventive.

I'm Not The Girl Who Misses Much (1986)

In I'm Not The Girl Who Misses Much, Pipilotti Rist dances before a camera in a black dress with uncovered breasts. The images are often monochromatic and fuzzy. Rists repeatedly sings I'm not the girl who misses much, a reference to the first line of the song Happiness Is a Warm Gun by the Beatles. As the video approaches its end, the image becomes increasingly blue and fuzzy and the sound stops.



Rist's classic video takes on rock music with its own tools, pushing pop's repetitive strategies and representations of women to absurd lengths. Rist's manipulation renders her voice into a parody of female hysteria and her body into a grotesquely dancing doll. Through obsessive mimesis Rist exhausts any possible legibility of the words, only to finally deliver John Lennon singing the real song.

Measures of Distance (1998)

Measures of Distances


In this video, letters from her mother in Beirut, written in Arabic, move across the screen. They are read aloud, in English, by the artist. Hatoum's mother is also heard, speaking openly about her feelings and sexuality, accompanied by images of her in the shower.



The video could be seen as a continuation of Mona Hatoum's earlier performance work: it represented a contrast between youth and age, between closeness and separation, homeland and exile.
Measuring a multitude of distances/oppositions or differences between home and exile, writing and reading, reading and translating, mother and daughter, autobiography and artistic invention, she creates a visual montage reflecting her feelings of separation and isolation from her Palestinian family. Emotional distance is measured by the separation of loved ones as surrounding space, emotional and physical, is overtaken by advancing war with its fissures, ruptures and violent breaks between family members.



The personal and political are inextricably bound in a narrative that explores personal and family identity against a backdrop of traumatic social rupture