Movies: Tony Conrad

Based on the ideas of Russian philosopher, Nikolai Fedorov, Anton Vidokle’s film was shot in Siberia, Crimea, and Kazakhstan. Fedorov, like others, believed that death was a mistake, “because the energy of cosmos is indestructible, because true relig...

“Coming Attractions” looks backward into the memories and forward into the future of Francis Francine, an elegantly dowdy transvestite of, and indeed beyond, a certain age. The memories, haunted by a Spirit of Seductions Past (played by a quite glori...

Made out of six patterns of alternating black and white imposed upon the full surface of the film strip....

Initially titled "Books for all". A moving institutional commission in which the filmmakers lovingly portray New Jersey's public library system....

Stroboscopic vertical lines on a loop accompanying minimalist drone music compositions....

Straight and Narrow is a study of subjective colour and visual rhythm, although it is printed on black and white film, the hypnotic pacing of the images will cause most viewers to experience a programmed gamut of hallucinatory colour effects. Through...

“A man, an accordion, a ladder, and a video camera. It’s as simple as that.” - Andrew Lampert...

A ramshackle underground SF satire set and shot in the self-absorbed art world of lower Manhattan, written, produced, and directed by Joe Gibbons, who also plays one of the lead parts. Gibbons plays a mad scientist who's developed a technique for tra...

The visual track of Weak Bodies and Strong Wills comes from my 1973 film, Enlightenment through Experience: Interim Semester at Albright College. The found film images had been kept in a closet at Albright College, where I was invited to teach a work...

A trisection of the spectators’ power over their own image language: word, trance, and command are installed as valences of the artist’s license, revealed as figures of parental authority. How peculiar that people like being an audience because they ...

A Dracula parody where the camera moves to the eye of Count Flickerstein and the image changes to static-like patterns....

Originally debuted in 1977, where it took the form of a dual slide projection with live piano accompaniment by the artist. In the 2012 installation version at the Buffalo AKG, the slides were transferred to digital projection and Conrad’s live accomp...

A short video by Tony Conrad....

Hey Bud begins with the suicide of Bud Dwyer, a government official who killed himself on television. Writes Zando: "I view the suicide as pornographic. The suicide, exposed to a wide television audience, becomes a kind of sex act that plays upon the...

If the intersection of desire and authority is phallus, the intersection of absence and vigilance is vagina. The tape’s laconic title (I saw, I conquered—but I didn’t come) encodes its vaginal pretense. In effect, Vidi Vici is a male artist exploring...

A film consisting of alternating black and white frames....

Mrs. Claus complains because Santa is away....

This exquisite single shot is a complement to Combat Status Go. Here the viewer is positioned casually, even though every other element in the film experiences a painful precision: piano, gun, wardrobe; conversation directed at (and across the bow of...

The latest in Marie Losier's ongoing series of film portraits of avant-garde directors (George and Mike Kuchar, Guy Maddin, Richard Foreman), DreaMinimalist offers an insightful and hilarious encounter with Conrad as he sings, dances and remembers hi...

“A theory discourse among three participants, enacted in silhouette.” –Tony Conrad...