Ed Emshwiller

Biography

Born in 1925, Ed Emshwiller studied graphic design at the University of Michigan and L'Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. By the late '60s Emshwiller was working as a science fiction illustrator, and had established his place in the American avant-garde cinema with such works as Relativity (1966) and Image, Flesh and Voice (1969). His early films featured collaborations with dancers and choreographers—a theme he carried over into his videoworks. As both an artist and a teacher, Emshwiller’s pioneering efforts to develop an alternative technological language in video were enormously influential. His early experiments with synthesizers and computers included the electronic rendering of three-dimensional space, the interplay of illusion and reality, and manipulations of time, movement, and scale that explore the relationship between "external reality and subjective feelings." Emshwiller was among the first artists-in-residence at the TV Lab at WNET, where he produced the groundbreaking Scape-mates (1972). Sunstone (1979) was made over a period of eight months at the New York Institute of Technology. Emshwiller passed away in 1990 and an extensive collection of his work is housed by Antho…

Directed

1. Thanatopsis (1963) — Director
2. Sunstone (1979) — Director
3. George Dumpson's Place (1965) — Director
4. Carol (1970) — Director
5. Relativity (1966) — Director
6. Lifelines (1960) — Director
7. Film with Three Dancers (1971) — Director
8. Scape-Mates (1972) — Director
9. Image, Flesh and Voice (1969) — Director
10. Dance Chromatic (1959) — Director
11. Eclipse (1979) — Director
12. Scrambles (1964) — Director
13. Transformation (1959) — Director
14. Totem (1963) — Director
15. Branches (1970) — Director
16. Family Focus (1976) — Director
17. Sur Faces (1977) — Director
18. Dubs (1978) — Director
19. Hungers (1987) — Director
20. Paintings by Ed Emshwiller (1958) — Director
21. Project Apollo (1968) — Director
22. The Thing from Back Issues (1956) — Director
23. Crossings and Meetings (1974) — Director
24. Fusion (1967) — Director
25. Art Scene USA (1966) — Director
26. Chrysalis (1973) — Director
27. Thermogenesis (1972) — Director
28. Choice Chance Woman Dance (1971) — Director
29. Skin Matrix (1984) — Director
30. Pilobolus and Joan (1973) — Director
31. Skin Matrix S (1984) — Director
32. Monsters (1958) — Director
33. Big Vacation (1958) — Director
34. Faces of America (1965) — Director
35. In Three Zones (1966) — Director
36. Woe Oh Ho No (1972) — Director
37. Images (1970) — Director
38. Computer Graphics #1 (1972) — Director
39. Positive Negative Electronic Faces (1973) — Director
40. Inside Edges (1975) — Director

Also appeared in

1. Diaries, Notes, and Sketches (1968) — Self
2. Lost, Lost, Lost (1976) — Self
3. Hallelujah the Hills (1963) — Gideon
4. Painters Painting (1973)
5. Birth of a Nation (1997)
6. Galaxie (1966) — Self
7. Family Focus (1976) — Himself
8. Home Movies 1971-81 (1985)
9. Solstice and Solyanka (1975)
10. Notes on the Buffalo Conference: “Autobiography in American Independent Cinema” (1973)