Ed Emshwiller
Born: 1925-02-16 in Lansing, Michigan
Died: 1990-07-27
Known For: Directing
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 Anthology Film Archives.
Filmography
1997
1987
- Hungers ... (Director)
1985
1984
- Skin Matrix ... (Director)
- Skin Matrix S ... (Director)
1980
- The Lathe of Heaven ... (Special Effects)
1978
- Dubs ... (Director)
1977
- Sur Faces ... (Director)
1976
- Lost, Lost, Lost as Self
- Family Focus as Himself
- New England Visions Past and Future ... (Director)
- Self-Trio ... (Director)
1975
- Inside Edges ... (Director)
- Solstice and Solyanka
1974
- Suite 212 ... (Camera Operator)
- Crossings and Meetings ... (Director)
1973
- Painters Painting
- Positive Negative Electronic Faces ... (Director)
- Notes on the Buffalo Conference: “Autobiography in American Independent Cinema”
- Identities ... (Director)
- Chrysalis ... (Director)
- Pilobolus and Joan ... (Director)
1972
- Thermogenesis ... (Director)
- Scape-Mates ... (Director)
- Woe Oh Ho No ... (Director)
- Computer Graphics #1 ... (Director)
1971
- Millhouse ... (Cinematography)
- Choice Chance Woman Dance ... (Director)
- Film with Three Dancers ... (Director)
1970
1969
- Jr. Star Trek ... (Cinematography)
- Image, Flesh and Voice ... (Director)
1968
- Diaries, Notes, and Sketches as Self
- Project Apollo ... (Director)
1967
- Bob Dylan – Don't Look Back ... (Camera Operator)
- Fusion ... (Director)
1966
- Oysters Are in Season ... (Director of Photography)
- Galaxie as Self
- Relativity ... (Director)
- Art Scene USA ... (Director)
- In Three Zones ... (Director)
1965
- George Dumpson's Place ... (Director)
- Film Magazine of the Arts ... (Cinematography)
- Faces of America ... (Director)
1964
- Scrambles ... (Director)
1963
- Hallelujah the Hills as Gideon
- Totem ... (Director)
- The Existentialist ... (Cinematography)
- Thanatopsis ... (Director)
- Freedom March ... (Director)
1962
- The American Way ... (Camera Operator)
- Time of the Heathen ... (Cinematography)
- The Streets of Greenwood ... (Cinematography)
1960
- Lifelines ... (Director)
1959
- Dance Chromatic ... (Director)
- Transformation ... (Director)
1958
- Monsters ... (Director)
- Big Vacation ... (Director)
- Paintings by Ed Emshwiller ... (Director)
1956
- The Thing from Back Issues ... (Director)