Fischinger, Oskar (1900–1967)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard J. Leskosky
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Original Art ◽  
The United States ◽  
Orchestral Music ◽  
John Cage ◽  
Special Effects ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Visual Music ◽  
Abstract Expressionist ◽  
Short Time

Oskar Fischinger (b. 22 June 1900, Gelnhausen, Germany; d. 31 January, 1967, Los Angeles, US) was one of the most influential German abstract experimental animators and creators of visual music. As a youth he studied draughtsmanship and engineering. In 1922, he invented a machine that photographed sequential slices of wax blocks, producing an abstract film in a relatively short time. In Munich, he continued his experiments in creating visual equivalents to orchestral music while making animated cartoons and multi-projector light shows. In Berlin, he did special effects for Fritz Lang’s Frau im Mond [Woman in the Moon] (1929), helped develop the three colour Gasparcolor process, and made stop-motion commercials. In 1936, Fischinger immigrated to the United States. In 1937 he composed the abstract short An Optical Poem to Liszt’s ‘Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2’ for MGM. He worked nine months on the ‘Toccata and Fugue’ segment of Disney’s Fantasia (1940), but none of his original art appears in the film. He continued making abstract expressionist visual music films until 1947, culminating in his masterwork Motion Painting No. 1. Lack of funding subsequently restricted him to painting; around this time he invented a machine to generate artificial sounds. In 1955 he patented the ‘lumigraph’, which enabled its operator to create silent moving colour compositions. Fischinger influenced a host of avant-garde animators, including Norman McLaren, Jordan Belson, and Len Lye, as well as composer John Cage.

American Rhapsody

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Zilczer
Keyword(s):  
Visual Art ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
The United States ◽  
Abstract Art ◽  
Comparative Case Study ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Visual Music ◽  
Georgia O'keeffe ◽  
Contemporary Artist ◽  
Aesthetic Values

The opening decades of the twentieth century saw painters renounce mimetic representation for the formal rigors and spiritual transcendence of visual art divorced from reproduction of the visible world. That they chose to do so in no small measure resulted from a profound shift in aesthetic values: music became the paradigm for visual art. While the concept of visual music gained international currency, this seductive aesthetic model had particular resonance in the United States. Between 1910 and 1930, leaders of the American avant-garde, such as Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Max Weber, experimented with musical ideas to forge a new abstract art. A comparative case study of the music pictures of these painters and the inter-media installations of contemporary artist Jennifer Steinkamp will illuminate the transformation of the modernist ideal of visual music in the postmodern era.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Lawrence
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
Mexico City ◽  
English Translation ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Literary Movement ◽  
Los Detectives Salvajes

In the summer of 2011, while drinking with friends in a Mexico City pulquería, I met a writer from Los Angeles who had just finished reading the English translation of Chilean novelist Roberto Bolaño’s Los detectives salvajes [The Savage Detectives, 1998]. The novel, which follows the founders of a 1970s Mexican avant-garde literary movement across four continents and a span of twenty years, had appeared in the United States with much fanfare a few years earlier. Since the ...

The New Failure of Nerve

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Byers
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
John Cage ◽  
Jackson Pollock ◽  
Max Horkheimer ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Theodor Adorno ◽  
Mark Rothko

The first chapter asks how the postwar American avant-garde emerged, and under what conditions. It considers a constellation of works from 1945 to 1947 which figured the need to ‘begin again’ both aesthetically and philosophically. The first section suggests that the roots of this movement can be found in critiques of the Enlightenment tradition which emerged in the United States from 1943 and informed a new independent left politics focused on the radical individual. The following sections reveal how these critiques (which included the work of émigrés such as Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer) initiated an American neo-primitivism exemplified by Olson’s early oeuvre as well as those of Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Barnett Newman, and John Cage.

The Spirit Inside Each Object

2019 ◽  
pp. 15-48
Author(s):  
Richard H. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Digital Signal ◽  
Arnold Schoenberg ◽  
Early Career ◽  
John Cage ◽  
Edgard Varese ◽  
Visual Music ◽  
History Of ◽  
Musical Resources ◽  
Organizational Principles

This chapter addresses the question of sound on film, that is, the optical imprint of sound in the recording mechanism within the realm of visual music studies. The conceptual critique of visual music vastly expanded in the 2010s as composers and sound artists have explored the predecessors of digital signal processing and audiovisual software, looking back to the earliest technologies that unveiled the nature of sound through the diachronic representation of soundwave structure on the optical soundtrack. This chapter begins by clarifying the historical and chronological details of one of the most cited interactions in the history of visual music studies between John Cage and German animator Oskar Fischinger in the 1930s and 1940s. Further examination of this connection reveals an important technological foundation to Cage’s call for the expansion of musical resources. New documentation on Cage’s early career in Los Angeles, including research Cage conducted for his father John Cage Sr.’s patents, explains his interest in these technologies. Concurrent with his studies with Arnold Schoenberg, Cage fostered an impressive knowledge of the technological foundations of television and radio entertainment industries centered in Los Angeles. Adopting the term “organized sound” from Edgard Varèse, Cage compared many of his organizational principles for percussion music to film-editing techniques.

Through The Looking Glass

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard H. Brown
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
John Cage ◽  
Military Technology ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Sound Film ◽  
Film And Television ◽  
Visual Music ◽  
Music Information ◽  
Media Form ◽  
Looking Glass

Through the Looking Glass examines John Cage’s interactions and collaborations with avant-garde and experimental filmmakers, and in turn seeks out the implications of the audiovisual experience for the overall aesthetic surrounding Cage’s career. As the commercially dominant media form in the 20th century, cinema transformed the way listeners were introduced to and consumed music. Cage’s quest to redefine music, intentionality, and expression reflects the similar transformation of music within the larger audiovisual experience of sound film. This study covers a wide variety of topics, ranging from Cage’s father, John Cage Sr.’s patents in infrared and military technology during World War II, theories of dance aesthetics, film and television theory, visual music, information technology, copyright, and the postwar position of the American Neo-Avant-Garde. This volume examines key moments in Cage’s career in which cinema either informed or transformed his position on the nature of sound, music, expression, and the ontology of the musical artwork. The examples point to moments of rupture within Cage’s own consideration of the musical artwork, pointing to new-found collision points that have a significant and heretofore unacknowledged role in Cage’s notions of the audiovisual experience and the medium-specific ontology of a work of art.

The First Decade of Effort: Progress Toward a Hospital Information System at the UCLA Hospital, Los Angeles, California

1970 ◽  
Vol 09 (02) ◽  
pp. 75-80
Author(s):  
B. G. Lamson ◽  
W. S. Russell ◽  
J. Fullmore ◽  
W. E. Nix
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Medical Record ◽  
Communication Systems ◽  
The United States ◽  
Computer Applications ◽  
Record Management ◽  
Successful Implementation ◽  
Accounting System ◽  
Accrual Accounting ◽  
Medical Specialties

Total information and communication systems within hospitals have been designed, but successful complete implementation, to date, has not been achieved. Limited applications with both patient medical data, notably in the clinical laboratories, and in the hospital accounting offices have been numerous. Although total programs are not yet a reality, it is apparent that the computer will serve ultimately many communication requirements, both medical and financial, within the hospital.Sound hospital management requires that costs of all component operations be known in order that value judgments concerning worth and efficiency may be made. Accrual accounting systems which match revenue and expense over the same time period are a prerequisite. Cash and modified cash hospital accounting cannot provide current reliable data for sound decision making.Costs of hospital operations cannot be evaluated unless related to the characteristics of the patient service load. Average per diem costs mean little except when large similar populations of patients are being compared. A modern hospital accrual accounting system should be able to provide information concerning the costs of caring for specific diseases in patients with known age and sex and disease severity characteristics. Without information of this type, it will not be possible to objectively evaluate alternative systems of financing and organizing patient care.Medical record management offers the promise of prospective use of patient disease information in the planning and scheduling of facilities. The prose content of medical record summaries, such as diagnostic statements in tissue pathology, radiology, and admission and discharge diagnoses, may be susceptible to non-coded, full prose input into computer controlled diagnostic files. Thesauri in the several medical specialties will be necessary for this achievement.There is little immediate prospect for complete hospital communication systems that can be made available as a package to any hospital without substantial local alteration. Pilot projects in teaching centers should be viewed for the time being as opportunities to define objectives, evaluate feasibility, and determine degree of risk and expense.A brief survey of applications in the United States which have been successfully implemented or which appear suitable for successful implementation is recorded.Eleven general principles which have been associated with successful implementation of computer applications within the UCLA Hospital are enumerated.

Community Outreach Partnership Center (COPC)

2003 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 44-51
Author(s):  
Kristine Brown ◽  
James Sturges
Keyword(s):  
Health Promotion ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
Mexican Immigrants ◽  
Community Outreach ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Integrated Services ◽  
The United States ◽  
Primary Objective ◽  
Health Promotion Program ◽  
Federal Grant

With the continued influx of Mexican immigrants to the United States, especially to Southern California, health concerns and needs have increased among this population over the last several years. California State Polytechnic University, Pomona (Cal Poly Pomona) obtained a federal grant that provided resources to establish the Community Outreach Partnership Center (COPC). COPC consists of comprehensive efforts to improve the overall well-being of the Angela Chanslor area within the City of Pomona in East Los Angeles. Focus areas of the project include 1) Education and Integrated Services, 2) Community Planning and Capacity Building for Neighborhood Revitalization and Safety, and 3) Job Development and Training. The focus of this paper is health promotion activities within Education and Integrated Services. The primary objective of this portion of the program was to provide residents with physical examinations and health screenings, health education, and medical and social service referrals. Topics discussed are the target community, general overview of COPC, Family Services Information and Referral Program (i.e. health promotion program within Education and Integrated Services), program impact and results, and suggestions for continued implementation and future efforts. / Con la influencia continua de inmigrantes Mexicanos a los Estados Unidos, especialmente al sur de California, ciertas necesidades con respecto a la salud han incrementado en esta poblacion en los ultimos anos. California State Polytechnic University, Pomona (Cal Poly Pomona). Obtuvo ayuda Federal para establecer El Community Outreach Partnership Center (COPC). El centro COPC consiste de esfuerzos conprensivos para mejorar el bienestar del area Angela Chanslor que esta ubicado en la Ciudad de Pomona en la parte Este de Los Angeles. Las partes enfocadas del proyecto incluyen, 1) Educacion y servicios Integrados, 2) Plan para la Comunidad y un Edificio de Capacitacion para la comunidad que dara revitalizacion y seguridad, 3) Y habrira trabajos y entrenamientos. El enfoque de este proyecto es de actividades en Promocion de Salud aliadas con educacion y Servicios Integrados. El objetivo principal de esta porcion del programa era de proveer a los residentes con examinaciones fisicas, educacion para la salud, y eran referidas a servicios medicos y sociales. Los topicos que son tratados son: La comunidad que sera ayudada, El enfoque general de COPC, informacion del programa para referir a servicios familiares, el impacto del programa y resultados, y sugerencias para implementar futuros esfuerzos.

The “Japanese Turn” in Fine Dining in the United States, 1980–2020

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 45-54
Author(s):  
Samuel H. Yamashita
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
San Francisco Bay Area ◽  
The United States ◽  
First Century ◽  
Further Training ◽  
Bay Area ◽  
Wide Acceptance

In the 1970s, Japanese cooks began to appear in the kitchens of nouvelle cuisine chefs in France for further training, with scores more arriving in the next decades. Paul Bocuse, Alain Chapel, Joël Robuchon, and other leading French chefs started visiting Japan to teach, cook, and sample Japanese cuisine, and ten of them eventually opened restaurants there. In the 1980s and 1990s, these chefs' frequent visits to Japan and the steady flow of Japanese stagiaires to French restaurants in Europe and the United States encouraged a series of changes that I am calling the “Japanese turn,” which found chefs at fine-dining establishments in Los Angeles, New York City, and later the San Francisco Bay Area using an ever-widening array of Japanese ingredients, employing Japanese culinary techniques, and adding Japanese dishes to their menus. By the second decade of the twenty-first century, the wide acceptance of not only Japanese ingredients and techniques but also concepts like umami (savory tastiness) and shun (seasonality) suggest that Japanese cuisine is now well known to many American chefs.

Markets, Technological Change and Economic Growth (The Quaid-i-Azam Lecture)

1994 ◽  
Vol 33 (4I) ◽  
pp. 327-356 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard G. Lipsey
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Economic Growth ◽  
Developing Countries ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
The United States ◽  
Industrial Countries ◽  
Canadian Institute ◽  
Primary Focus ◽  
Short Time

I am honoured to be invited to give this lecture before so distinguished an audience of development economists. For the last 21/2 years I have been director of a project financed by the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and composed of a group of scholars from Canada, the United States, and Israel.I Our brief is to study the determinants of long term economic growth. Although our primary focus is on advanced industrial countries such as my own, some of us have come to the conclusion that there is more common ground between developed and developing countries than we might have first thought. I am, however, no expert on development economics so I must let you decide how much of what I say is applicable to economies such as your own. Today, I will discuss some of the grand themes that have arisen in my studies with our group. In the short time available, I can only allude to how these themes are rooted in our more detailed studies. In doing this, I must hasten to add that I speak for myself alone; our group has no corporate view other than the sum of our individual, and very individualistic, views.

Material World: Gender and the Bible in Evangelical Purity Culture

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Moslener
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Young People ◽  
Gender Roles ◽  
The United States ◽  
Modern Life ◽  
Material World ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Teenage Girls ◽  
Traditional Gender Roles ◽  
The Bible

For evangelical adolescents living in the United States, the material world of commerce and sexuality is fraught with danger. Contemporary movements urge young people to embrace sexual purity and abstinence before marriage and eschew the secular pressures of modern life. And yet, the sacred text that is used to authorize these teachings betrays evangelicals’ long-standing ability to embrace the material world for spiritual purposes. Bibles marketed to teenage girls, including those produced by and for sexual purity campaigns, make use of prevailing trends in bible marketing. By packaging the message of sexual purity and traditional gender roles into a sleek modern day apparatus, American evangelicals present female sexual restraint as the avant-garde of contemporary, evangelical orthodoxy.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document