Mutations

Mutations

Production country: 
us
Year: 
1972
Duration: 
6'
Edition: 
2017
Format: 
film/video

Mutations is based on Mutations I, a piece of electronic music by French composer Jean-Claude Risset. Commissioned by the Office de Radiodiffusion Télévision Française, Risset produced Mutations I at Bell Labs in 1969, one of the first works to include frequency modulation synthesis. Lillian Schwartz's imagery combines computer-animated patterns and lines with crystal growth and, more importantly, with changing laser dots and ectoplasmic shapes. For the latter, the collaboration with Bell Labs colleague Don White, who worked in holograms and lasers, was crucial. "He eventually arranged the lasers to project onto a white wall in his office. I filmed these images to create the abstract images that I edited into my film Mutations," explains Schwartz when interviewed by Chris Garcia in 2013 for the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California.

share

Related participants: 
Related events: