Ed Emshwiller
- Known for
- Directing
- Born
- February 16, 1925
- Place of birth
- Lansing, Michigan
- Died
- July 27, 1990
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.
Movies with Ed Emshwiller
- Diaries, Notes, and Sketches 1968 · ★ 7.3
- Lost, Lost, Lost 1976 · ★ 7.1
- Hallelujah the Hills 1963 · ★ 6.2
- Painters Painting 1973 · ★ 7.0
- Birth of a Nation 1997 · ★ 7.0
- Galaxie 1966 · ★ 10.0
- Family Focus 1976 · ★ 7.0
- Home Movies 1971-81 1985
- Solstice and Solyanka 1975
- Notes on the Buffalo Conference: “Autobiography in American Independent Cinema” 1973
Movies directed by Ed Emshwiller
- Thanatopsis 1963 · ★ 6.4
- Sunstone 1979 · ★ 7.0
- George Dumpson's Place 1965 · ★ 6.1
- Carol 1970 · ★ 6.0
- Relativity 1966 · ★ 5.5
- Lifelines 1960 · ★ 5.8
- Film with Three Dancers 1971 · ★ 5.5
- Scape-Mates 1972 · ★ 6.3
- Image, Flesh and Voice 1969 · ★ 6.5
- Dance Chromatic 1959 · ★ 8.0
- Eclipse 1979 · ★ 7.0
- Scrambles 1964 · ★ 7.0
- Transformation 1959 · ★ 7.0
- Totem 1963 · ★ 10.0
- Branches 1970 · ★ 7.0
- Family Focus 1976 · ★ 7.0
- Sur Faces 1977 · ★ 10.0
- Dubs 1978 · ★ 10.0
- Hungers 1987 · ★ 8.0
- Paintings by Ed Emshwiller 1958 · ★ 8.0
- Project Apollo 1968 · ★ 7.0
- The Thing from Back Issues 1956
- Crossings and Meetings 1974
- Fusion 1967
- Art Scene USA 1966
- Chrysalis 1973
- Thermogenesis 1972
- Choice Chance Woman Dance 1971
- Skin Matrix 1984
- Pilobolus and Joan 1973
- Skin Matrix S 1984
- Monsters 1958
- Big Vacation 1958
- Faces of America 1965
- In Three Zones 1966
- Woe Oh Ho No 1972
- Images 1970
- Computer Graphics #1 1972
- Positive Negative Electronic Faces 1973
- Inside Edges 1975