Jordan Belson
1926 - 2011Northern Lights
Jordan Belson
The film contains colors that combine and flow into others. Snow-like objects can also be seen falling over the screen. Although when Belson made the film he did not intend to capture or recreate the aurora borealis, Belson soon realized when he was done making the film that the film did just that. For that reason Belson gave named the film "Northern Lights." After finishing the film, Belson saw footage of the aurora borealis and realized just how close he came to capturing what the northern lights actually look like.
Northern Lights
Cycles
Jordan Belson, Stephen Beck
Cycles brings together 16mm film with Stephen Beck’s Direct Video Synthesizer imagery via a proprietary process Beck referred to as “editation.” Beck also composed the soundtrack to the film, which is made of one sequence repeated 12 times, with both artists contributing variations on each pass.
Cycles
Samadhi
Jordan Belson
Samadhi is both mystical and mysterious, an incredible fusion of movement, sound and colour. Belson notes the influence of his study and practice of Yoga and Tibetan Buddhism on the creation of Samadhi. The film is inspired by the principles of yogic meditation: the movement of consciousness towards samadhi (union of subject and object), the fusion of atma (breath and mind), a state which reveals the divine force of kundalini, a bright white light we discover at the end of Samadhi. The Tibetan Book of The Dead is the inspiration behind Belson’s use of colour in Samadhi, corresponding to descriptions of the elements of Earth, Fire, Air and Water in the book. —Sophie Pinchetti, The Third Eye
Samadhi
Bop Scotch
Jordan Belson
An early film by Jordan Belson from 1952. "[Belson's] early films animated real objects (pavements in Bop Scotch [1952]) and scroll paintings prepared like film strips with successive images (Mandala [1953]). Belson subsequently withdrew these films from circulation as imperfect and primitive, but they already reflect his refined plastic sensibility, fine color sense, and superb sense of dynamic structure. They also foreshadow his more accomplished expressions of mystical concepts, Bop Scotch seeming to reveal a hidden soul and life-force in "inanimate" objects."
Bop Scotch
