Minimalist Directions

Corridor
Connecticut filmmaker Lawder was entranced by California composer Riley's record, “Rainbow in Curved Air,” and its purity of cyclically modular development, combining the climax and directionality of Western music with the stasis of Eastern modalities.
• By Standish Lawder. Music by Terry Riley. (1968-70, 20 mins, Print from Canyon Cinema)

Music with Balls
In a rare fusion of empathetic talents, the swinging spheres of Acton and the pre-recorded tracks of Riley against his saxophone solo were processed through cinema and video systems with keying, de-beaming, wipes, and dissolves yielding phantasmagorical chromatic imagery.
• Video Mixing by John Coney. Sculpture by Arlo Acton. Music by Terry Riley. (1969, ca.10 mins, color, Print from Jim Newman)

Crossroads
12 minutes of successive views of the Bikini Atoll atomic bomb test, with a reverberating score by Patrick Gleeson performed on the Moog synthesizer; then 24 minutes with Terry Riley's numbing, translucent evocation of aftershock.
• By Bruce Conner. Music by Patrick Gleeson and Terry Riley. (1976, 36 mins, Print from PFA Collection)

Take the 5:10 to Dreamland
“The first time I heard the music I started envisioning some of the same images that I have been running though the Moviscop viewer for years and years.” --B.C.
• By Bruce Conner. Music by Patrick Gleeson. (1976, 6 mins, sepia-tone tint, Print from Serious Business)

Piano Rub
The keyboard and strings of a piano are transformed into graphic linear patterns of visual music, as the sounds of “piano rubbing” rise and fall.
• By Mary Beams. (1975, 3 mins, color, Print from Serious Business)

Seasound
An engaging silent study of rhythmic unending motion of the waves on the ocean. This film is so powerful that audiences claim to hear the sound of the sea while watching the film.
• By Robert R. Dvorak. (1978, 8 mins, color, silent, Print from Canyon Cinema)

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