+ James & John Whitney By Kyle Krivitsky & Morgan Libruk FILM344 Presentation Thursday, March 15, 2012

+ James Whitney ( ) Filmmaker Abstract cinema Classics in visual music Spent life in LA Studied painting, traveled in England before WWII Ceramics & pottery After 1946, became interested in spiritual aspects that influenced later work Alchemy Jiddu Krishnamurti (psychological revolution, nature of mind, meditation, human relationships, positive change) Jungian psychology (integrate unconscious forces/motivations) Tao Yoga

+ John Whitney ( ) Animator, composer, inventor Computer animation California Pomona College  studied music & photography in England First works movies of lunar eclipse with homemade telescope spent in Paris studying twelve-tone composition Returned to America in 1939 & began collaborating with James on abstract films 1960 – Motion Graphics Inc., mechanical analogue computer Design templates placed on different layers of rotating tables & photographed by multiple-axis rotating cameras  creation of simultaneous motions 1970s – faster digital processes 1980s-90s – audio-visual composition program called “Whitney-Reed RDTD (Radius-Differential Theta Differential)”  digital harmony

+ Filmography James Whitney “Variations on a Circle” ( ) “Yantra” ( ) “Lapis” ( ) “Twenty-Four Variations on an Original Theme” ( ) “Film Exercises” ( ) Series of five (James 2-4, John 1 & 5) Prize for best sound (1949) at Brussels Experimental Film Competition

+ The Whitney Brothers Legacy Experimental filmmaking Recognized power of computers Abstract art Hypnosis Indian sitar music Kaleidoscope Multiple angles Oscillation Trance

+ Links “Lapis” “Film Exercise #1” s_video&playnext=1&list=PLB247FE10BCEBC67B s_video&playnext=1&list=PLB247FE10BCEBC67B “Yantra” d d

+ References ml ml whitney/ whitney/