LAZNIA 1 2008 - Len Lye ART IN MOTION
17.01.2008, at 6 p.m.
Lecture and film presentation: Katarzyna Prajzner
The New Zealand-born artist Len Lye was active in a number of artistic fields – as a painter, director, sculptor, poet and theorist. Despite of the apparent diversity of his interests, in each of the areas of his activity Lye took up the challenge of making motion a means of artistic expression. Creator of kinetic sculptures, fascinated with motion and colour, is best known as a film experimenter. In the 1930s, working for British General Post Office, Lye as one of the first used the technique of direct animation on film in his animated commercials, combining visual and audio effects in an innovative way. Underestimated in his own time, he is now considered a pioneer of cameraless film and initiator of the technique of direct animation and – along with Oskar Fischinger and Norman McLaren – one of the prominent pre-war avant-garde filmmakers.
The New Zealand-born artist Len Lye was active in a number of artistic fields – as a painter, director, sculptor, poet and theorist. Despite of the apparent diversity of his interests, in each of the areas of his activity Lye took up the challenge of making motion a means of artistic expression. Creator of kinetic sculptures, fascinated with motion and colour, is best known as a film experimenter. In the 1930s, working for British General Post Office, Lye as one of the first used the technique of direct animation on film in his animated commercials, combining visual and audio effects in an innovative way. Underestimated in his own time, he is now considered a pioneer of cameraless film and initiator of the technique of direct animation and – along with Oskar Fischinger and Norman McLaren – one of the prominent pre-war avant-garde filmmakers.
BIP