BRUCE CONNER /
RECORDING ANGEL
MARCIANO ART FOUNDATION LOS ANGELES
“When I think about nonlinear perception, I think about the way you collect various preces of information and put them into some kind of functional use to make sense of the world. It is about consciousness itself.”
-Bruce Conner
The multidisciplinary artist Bruce Conner (1933-2008) was truly an enigma. He moved effortlessly between sculptural assemblage, painting, conceptual art, collage, drawing, photography, and experimental filmmaking without any sense of hierarchy. Deeply embedded in American countercultural movements of the postwar period, from the Beat poets of the 1950s to the emergent punk scenes of the 1970s and 198os, Conner had a radical and restless eye that brought with it a wry humor, biting wit, and love of the uncanny and the revolutionary. Nowhere was Conner’s irreverent inquisitiveness more apparent than in the now legendary body of experimental films he undertook in 1958, which were composed of found, scavenged, and original film footage.
In many ways Conner can be seen as the pioneer of the remix and cut-up techniques of filmmaking that are now so ubiquitous. In fact, he has been called the “father of the music video” in recognition of the rapid-fire editing effects that he developed, which are widely used in music videos and film trailers today. As he said to an interviewer in 1986, “I learned to distrust words. I placed my bet on vision.”
TWO PIECES OF PAPER
A THOUSAND WORDS SAY A PICTURE
BY PHIL SCOTT - AARHUS UNIVERSITY, DENMARK
Excited to be in this new publication.
The project explores how images communicate without words, an experiment in curating visual storytelling through juxtaposition and sequence.
@philscottart@aarhus_university
