Ed Emshwiller

Born in 1925 Ed Emshwiller studied graphic design at the University of Michigan and LEcole 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 avantgarde cinema with such works as Relativity 1966 and Image Flesh and Voice 1969 His early films featured collaborations with dancers and choreographersa theme he carried over into his videoworks As both an artist and a teacher Emshwillers 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 threedimensional 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 artistsinresidence at the TV Lab at WNET where he produced the groundbreaking Scapemates 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