Hollis Frampton
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| - | {{Template}}'''Hollis Frampton''' ([[1936]]-[[1984]]) was an American [[avant-garde]] filmmaker, photographer, writer/theoretician, and a pioneer of digital art. | + | {{Template}} |
| - | + | '''Hollis Frampton''' ([[1936]]-[[1984]]) was an [[Avant-garde film in the United States|American avant-garde film]]maker working in the [[structural film]] tradition. His best known work is ''[[Zorn's Lemma]]'' (1970). | |
| - | == Zorn's Lemma == | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | His most significant work is arguably "[[Zorn's Lemma]]" (1970), a film which drastically altered perceptions towards [[experimental film]] at the time. He was seen as a [[structural film]]maker, a style that focused on the nature of film itself. In an interview with [[Robert Gardner]] he stated a discomfort with that term because it was too broad and didn't accurately reflect the nature of his work. | + | |
| == Biography == | == Biography == | ||
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| In college, Frampton did a radio show focusing on poetry and then spent a year and a half in Washington, D.C. where he studied with the aging Ezra Pound. Moving to New York, he traveled in the artist circles of friends Andre and Stella. After a period of attempts at sculpture, he settled into photography. As Frampton's photography moved toward exploring ideas of series and sets, it was natural that he begin filmmaking. He based a lot of his early films on concepts, which he applied clearly and cleverly. All of his very early works were either discarded or lost. His earliest surviving work was Information (1966). His early works were reasonably simple in construction. A few of them including Maxwell's Demon, Surface Tension, and Prince Rupert's Drops were based on concepts from science, a subject he was well read on. As he got on, his films gradually increased in complexity. | In college, Frampton did a radio show focusing on poetry and then spent a year and a half in Washington, D.C. where he studied with the aging Ezra Pound. Moving to New York, he traveled in the artist circles of friends Andre and Stella. After a period of attempts at sculpture, he settled into photography. As Frampton's photography moved toward exploring ideas of series and sets, it was natural that he begin filmmaking. He based a lot of his early films on concepts, which he applied clearly and cleverly. All of his very early works were either discarded or lost. His earliest surviving work was Information (1966). His early works were reasonably simple in construction. A few of them including Maxwell's Demon, Surface Tension, and Prince Rupert's Drops were based on concepts from science, a subject he was well read on. As he got on, his films gradually increased in complexity. | ||
| - | Zorns Lemma remains the most widely know of this films. It is formed in three different sections. The first is a reading of the Bay State Primer, a puritan work for children to learn the alphabet. The sentences used had foreboding themes such as "In Adams fall, we sinned all." The second section is based on a text based work by Carl Andre, which started out with an alphabetical list of words for each letter in the alphabet. Each subsequent list is replaced with a letter until it is just letters. In Zorns Lemma, the concept is reversed. It starts off with a twenty four letter alphabet (I/J and U/V are considered one letter), each letter shown for one second of screentime and then looping. The second cycle replaces each letter with a word that starts with each letter. Gradually the word stills are replaced by an active film shot, such as washing hands or peeling a tangerine until there are only moving images. It is an amazing 45 minutes of film. The third section contains a seemingly single shot of a couple walking across a snowy meadow. The sound is of six women reading one word at a time from Theory of Light. | + | After Zorns Lemma, he made the ''Hapax Legomena'' films, a series of seven films of which (nostalgia) is the most well known. Several of these films (nostalgia and Critical Mass) explored the relation between sound and cinema, an area often disregarded in American avant-garde film, by demonstrating a disjointed relationship between the two. ''[[Poetic Justice]]'' explores a "cinema of the mind", wherein the film takes place in the viewers' imagination(s) as they read title cards. An extremely rare artist book edition of Poetic Justice was printed by the Visual Studies Workshop. |
| - | One interpretation of Zorns Lemma was that it was a comment on life's stages, the morality of the Bay State Primer being childhood, the sets of numbers representing maturing and interaction with the world, and the third part representing old age and death. | + | His final major film project was a monumental project called ''Magellan'', named after the explorer who first circumnavigated the world. Magellan was intended to be shown as a calendrical cycle, one film for each day of the year. One film from the cycle, Magellan: Drafts and Fragments, is exemplary of Frampton's ambition to create a personal "meta-history" of film; in Drafts and fragments, he remade the cinema of the Lumieres in 51 1-minute films. Although incomplete at his death, the body of films made for Magellan is significant. In some ways, Frampton's entire oeuvre seems to fit under the Magellan umbrella. |
| - | + | ||
| - | After Zorns Lemma, he made the Hapax Legomena films, a series of seven films of which (nostalgia) is the most well known. Several of these films (nostalgia and Critical Mass) explored the relation between sound and cinema, an area often disregarded in American avant-garde film, by demonstrating a disjointed relationship between the two. Poetic Justice explores a "cinema of the mind", wherein the film takes place in the viewers' imagination(s) as they read title cards. An extremely rare artist book edition of Poetic Justice was printed by the Visual Studies Workshop. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | His final major film project was a monumental project called Magellan, named after the explorer who first circumnavigated the world. Magellan was intended to be shown as a calendrical cycle, one film for each day of the year. One film from the cycle, Magellan: Drafts and Fragments, is exemplary of Frampton's ambition to create a personal "meta-history" of film; in Drafts and fragments, he remade the cinema of the Lumieres in 51 1-minute films. Although incomplete at his death, the body of films made for Magellan is significant. In some ways, Frampton's entire oeuvre seems to fit under the Magellan umbrella. | + | |
| The last few years of his life, Frampton taught at SUNY Buffalo, writing, working on Magellan and ongoing photographic projects with fellow artist and wife Marion Faller, and investigating the relationship between computers and art. He did some initial work with video and sound reproducing with an [[Altair 8800]] computer. | The last few years of his life, Frampton taught at SUNY Buffalo, writing, working on Magellan and ongoing photographic projects with fellow artist and wife Marion Faller, and investigating the relationship between computers and art. He did some initial work with video and sound reproducing with an [[Altair 8800]] computer. | ||
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| Frampton died of cancer in 1984. | Frampton died of cancer in 1984. | ||
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| - | Film study, restoration and print availability through Filmmakers Co-op NY, Anthology Film Archives and NY MoMA. | ||
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| - | See also American "structural" filmmakers [[Tony Conrad]], [[Paul Sharits]], [[Ernie Gehr]], [[George Landow]] and European filmmakers [[Malcolm LeGrice]] (UK), [[Peter Gidal]] (UK), [[Gábor Bódy]] (Hungary) and [[Ladislav Galeta ]](Croatia). | ||
| ==Filmography== | ==Filmography== | ||
Revision as of 10:02, 15 January 2010
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Hollis Frampton (1936-1984) was an American avant-garde filmmaker working in the structural film tradition. His best known work is Zorn's Lemma (1970).
Biography
He was born in Ohio, raised in Massachusetts, where he encountered the artists Carl Andre and Frank Stella with whom he became friends. As he moved on to university, his noted erudition was formed when he took a wide variety of classes without concern to any major or concentration. He recalled that when he was called in front of the dean, he was told the he had to take speech, western civilization, and music appreciation. He commented, "'I already know how to talk, I already know who Napoleon was and I already like music.' For that reason I hold no bachelor's degree. I was very sick of school."
In college, Frampton did a radio show focusing on poetry and then spent a year and a half in Washington, D.C. where he studied with the aging Ezra Pound. Moving to New York, he traveled in the artist circles of friends Andre and Stella. After a period of attempts at sculpture, he settled into photography. As Frampton's photography moved toward exploring ideas of series and sets, it was natural that he begin filmmaking. He based a lot of his early films on concepts, which he applied clearly and cleverly. All of his very early works were either discarded or lost. His earliest surviving work was Information (1966). His early works were reasonably simple in construction. A few of them including Maxwell's Demon, Surface Tension, and Prince Rupert's Drops were based on concepts from science, a subject he was well read on. As he got on, his films gradually increased in complexity.
After Zorns Lemma, he made the Hapax Legomena films, a series of seven films of which (nostalgia) is the most well known. Several of these films (nostalgia and Critical Mass) explored the relation between sound and cinema, an area often disregarded in American avant-garde film, by demonstrating a disjointed relationship between the two. Poetic Justice explores a "cinema of the mind", wherein the film takes place in the viewers' imagination(s) as they read title cards. An extremely rare artist book edition of Poetic Justice was printed by the Visual Studies Workshop.
His final major film project was a monumental project called Magellan, named after the explorer who first circumnavigated the world. Magellan was intended to be shown as a calendrical cycle, one film for each day of the year. One film from the cycle, Magellan: Drafts and Fragments, is exemplary of Frampton's ambition to create a personal "meta-history" of film; in Drafts and fragments, he remade the cinema of the Lumieres in 51 1-minute films. Although incomplete at his death, the body of films made for Magellan is significant. In some ways, Frampton's entire oeuvre seems to fit under the Magellan umbrella.
The last few years of his life, Frampton taught at SUNY Buffalo, writing, working on Magellan and ongoing photographic projects with fellow artist and wife Marion Faller, and investigating the relationship between computers and art. He did some initial work with video and sound reproducing with an Altair 8800 computer.
His writings on film are some of the most lucid and thrilling perceptions any artist has made on the cinema. Alongside Stan Brakhage, Hollis Frampton was a leading pioneer of abstract expression in American film, akin perhaps to John Cage and Morton Feldman in contributions to their art.
Frampton died of cancer in 1984.
Filmography
- Clouds Like White Sheep (1962) 25 min 16mm (reported destroyed)
- A Running Man (1963) 22 min 16mm (reported destroyed)
- Ten Mile Poem (1964) 33 min 16mm (reported destroyed)
- Obelisk Ampersand Encounter (1965) 1:30 min 16mm (reported lost)
- Information (1966) 4 min 16mm
- Manual of Arms (1966) 17 min 16mm
- Process Red (1966) 3:30 min 16mm
- Heterodyne (1967) 7 min 16mm
- Maxwell's Demon (1968) 4 min 16mm
- Snowblind (1968) 5:30 min 16mm
- Surface Tension (1968) 10 min 16mm
- Artificial Light (1969) 25 min 16mm
- Carrots and Peas (1969) 5:30 min 16mm
- Lemon (1969) 7:30 min 16mm
- Palindrome (1969) 22 min 16mm
- Prince Rupert Drops (1969) 7 min 16mm
- Work and Days (1969) 12 mins 16mm
- States (1967, Revised 1970) 17:30 min 16mm
- Zorns Lemma ( 1970) 60 minutes 16mm
- Clouds of Magellan (1971) 16mm
- Critical Mass (1971) 25:30 min 16mm
- (nostalgia) (1971) 36 min 16mm
- Travelling Matte (1971) 33:30 min 16mm
- Appartus Sum (1972) 3 min 16mm
- Given: . . . (1972) 28 min 16mm
- Hapax Legomena (1971-1972) 3 hrs 22 min 16mm
- Ordinary Matter (1972) 36 min 16mm
- Poetic Justice (1972) 31:30 min 16mm
- Public Domain (1972) 18 min 16mm
- Remote Control (1972) 29 min 16mm
- Special Effects (1972) 10:30 min 16mm
- Tiger Balm (1972) 10 min 16mm
- Yellow Springs (1972) 5 min 16mm
- Less (1973) 1 sec 16mm
- Autumnal Equinox (Solariumagelani) (1974) 27 min 16mm
- Banner (1974) 40 sec 16mm
- INGENIVM NOBIS IPSA PVELLA FECIT (1974) 61:30 min 16mm
- Noctiluca (Magellan's Toys: #1) (1974) 3:30 min 16mm
- SOLARIUMAGELANI (1974) 92 min 16mm
- Straits of Magellan (1974) 51:15 min 16mm
- Summer Solstice (1974) 32 min 16mm
- Winter Solstice (1974) 33 min 16mm
- Drum (1975) 20 sec 16mm
- Pas de Trois (1975) 4 min 16mm
- For Georgia O'Keeffe (1976) 3:30 min 16mm
- Magellan: At the Gates of Death, Part I: The Red Gate (1976) 54 min 16mm
- "Magellan: Drafts and Fragments"
- "More Than Meets The Eye"
- "Otherwise Unexplained Fires"
