LILLIAN SCHWARTZ: EARLY PERMUTATIONS
With guest Kristen Gallerneaux
Thursday, Feb. 15, 2024 (7:30pm)
Co-presented by Aurora Picture Show and the Moody Center for the Arts
Location: The Moody Center for the Arts, Rice University
Free Admission, 3D glasses provided
Curator: Peter Lucas

Aurora and the Moody co-present a special screening of rarely seen experimental films by artist Lillian Schwartz, an early pioneer of computer-mediated art. Though she began her career drawing and painting, Schwartz’s practice increasingly embraced the expanding possibilities of new forms and technologies. Her kinetic sculpture Proxima Centauri (1968) made waves when it was included in the influential exhibition “The Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age,” presented at MoMA and then in Houston at the Rice Museum. As a resident artist at Bell Laboratories, Schwartz began combining different techniques and technologies to create unique, fast-moving and eye-popping abstract films. This program celebrates this visionary with a selection of her earliest experimental films, made at Bell Labs 1970-76. Chromadepth 3D glasses will be provided, for the enhancement of many of the films in the program! The screening will be followed by a conversation between curator Peter Lucas and guest Kristen Gallerneaux, Curator of Communications & Information Technology at The Henry Ford. This program will take place at The Moody Center for the Arts’ Lois Chiles Studio Theater. The Moody is located on the campus of Rice University, just inside Entrance 8 at the corner of University and Stockton. Paid parking available. Map and Info here.

NOTE: These films contain flashing images that may cause discomfort or trigger seizures for people with photosensitivity. Viewer discretion is advised. 

Lillian F. Schwartz (Featured Artist)
Lillian F. Schwartz (b. 1927) was born in Cincinnati and spent formative years in Japan just after World War II. While there, she caught Polio, and began practicing pen and ink drawing as part of her therapy to overcome paralysis. An ever-evolving artist, she began painting with oils and acrylics, then moved to create light paintings, collages, electronic mobiles, and even plastic imagery through changing the chemical composition. She became a member of the Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) group, which encouraged collaboration between artists and engineers. In 1968, her kinetic sculpture Proxima Centauri utilizing slide projection light displays into a white plastic orb was included in the influential exhibition The Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age at the Museum of Modern Art (later traveling to the Rice Museum in Houston.) This led to her long involvement at Bell Laboratories as a resident artist and consultant beginning in 1969. During the 1970s and ‘80s, Schwartz developed visionary techniques for the use of computer systems by artists–including programs for color filtering, editing, and art and historical analyses. Her own formal explorations in abstract animation involved the marriage of film, computers, and music. Schwartz’s films have been exhibited at the Venice Biennale, Cannes, The Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, and elsewhere. 

Kristen Gallerneaux (Guest Speaker)
Kristen Gallerneaux (Métis-Wendat) is a curator, media historian, and interdisciplinary artist holding a Ph.D. in Art Practice & Media History (UC San Diego), an MA in Folklore (University of Oregon), and an MFA in Printmaking (Wayne State University). At The Henry Ford museum in Dearborn, Michigan, she is Curator of Communications & Information Technology and Editor-in-Chief for Digital Curation. Her collecting focuses on the intersections of technology, creativity, and activism. In 2021, she acquired the archive of filmmaker and digital artist Lillian Schwartz, and curated the career retrospective exhibition, Lillian Schwartz: Whirlwind of Creativity. She has published on topics as diverse as mathematics in midcentury design, the world's first mouse pad, experimental film, and car audio bass battles in Miami. Gallerneaux’s monograph, High Static, Dead Lines: Sonic Spectres & the Object Hereafter is available via Strange Attractor and MIT Press. She has appeared as a speaker or performer at HKW Berlin, Whitechapel Gallery, Unsound Krakow, and Moogfest. She contributes occasional art and sound culture writing at The Wire, the Quietus, and ARTnews.

Image: Lillian Schwartz, UFOs, 1971. From the Collections of The Henry Ford. Gift of the Lillian F. Schwartz & Laurens R. Schwartz Collection.