James Whitney
1921 - 1982Yantra
James Whitney
"Completed in 1957, less than ten minutes long, Yantra is questionably catalogued as abstract. Witness Brakhage's concept of closed-eye vision and our generic attribute of experimental film/video's affinity for mental imagery." -Edward Small, Direct Theory.
Yantra
Lapis
James Whitney
James Whitney’s Lapis (1966) is a classic work of abstract cinema, a 10-minute animation that took three years to create using primitive computer equipment. In this piece smaller circles oscillate in and out in an array of colors resembling a kaleidoscope while being accompanied with Indian sitar music. The patterns become hypnotic and trance inducing. This work clearly correlates the auditory and the visual and is a wonderful example of the concept of synaesthesia.
Lapis
Five Film Exercises: Film 5
John Whitney Sr., James Whitney
Opens with a short canonical statement of a theme upon which the entire film is constructed. The canon is repeated in contrasting variations by means of color. A second section poses the same image in deep film space. The image unfolds itself repeatedly, leaving the receding image to continue on smaller and smaller.
Five Film Exercises: Film 5
Five Film Exercises: Film 1
John Whitney Sr., James Whitney
Begins with a three beat announcement drawn out in time which thereafter serves as a figure to divide the four sections. Each return of this figure is more condensed, and finally used in reverse to conclude the film.
Five Film Exercises: Film 1
