Bebe Barron, 82, Pioneer of Electronic Scores, Is Dead. Best known for the soundtrack to the 1956 sci-fi classic Forbidden Planet -- the first full-length feature to use only electronic music -- she and her husband Louis Barron recorded the film's pre-synthesizer "electronic tonalities" with electronic circuits of their own invention. She never scored another feature film, but remained active in the avant-garde music scene.
posted on May 8, 2008 - View this thread

20th Century Avant-Garde is a great resource guide to experimental art from 1900 onwards. Special sections for dada, the situationists and fluxus. You can also browse by categories such as artists, film and video art, movements in art, publishers and many more. If you're interested in experimental art of the 20th Century you can get lost in this site for hours.
posted on Jan 23, 2008 - View this thread

Living in the Mall is an art project by Providence artist Michael J. Townsend that has come to an abrubt end. "Eight artists snuck into the depths of Providence Place mall and built a secret studio apartment in which they stayed, on and off, for nearly four years until mall security finally caught their leader last week." Townsend's wife, Adriana Yoto, also documented the project at her website.
posted on Oct 2, 2007 - View this thread

Steve Mann's hydraulophone with sculpture gallery and performance video snippets: [1] [2] [3]
posted on Aug 27, 2007 - View this thread

Introduced to Western culture by the Beatles in their single Norwegian Wood, the sitar has featured prominently in North Indian classical music for centuries. Princeton-based computer scientist Ajay Kapur updates the instrument with his ESitar, an audio and video controller that uses gesture input (PDF) and machine learning algorithms to facilitate joining the computer with Ajay in his sitar performance. Undergraduate engineering students at the University of Pennsylvania work from the other direction, building RAVI-bot, an award-winning, self-playing robotic sitar (YouTube) programmed to generate music from classical Raga scales and melodies all on its own. For those in the Philadelphia area, be sure to check out a live performance of RAVI-bot at the local Klein Art Gallery.
posted on Apr 19, 2007 - View this thread

UbuWeb has converted all of its rare and out-of-print film & video holdings to on-demand streaming formats. via WFMU.
posted on Nov 28, 2006 - View this thread

Starting January 1st, the so-called 'Godfather' of avant-garde cinema, Jonas Mekas will podcast one short film per day, for a full year. If you can't wait till January here are 2 of Mekas's films to tide you over: Zefiro Torna and Hare Krishna. Or see the 40 short films being shown at a gallery in New York. [Via this NPR report, which, if you're already familiar with Mekas and his work, is likely the most interesting link here.]
posted on Nov 6, 2006 - View this thread

Happy birthday, Kasimir Malevich! The Guggenheim has curated an exhibition (currently in Berlin and coming to New York in May) to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the birth of this Russian avant-garde painter who, among other things, was a major influence on El Lissitzky and worked alongside Liubov Popova. The story of how the show itself came to be -- featuring many works never before seen in the West -- makes for rather dramatic reading, to boot. (NYTimes link; reg. req.) [more inside]
posted on Mar 31, 2003 - View this thread

Still Avant-Garde After All These Years: Alexander Rodchenko: An outstanding collection of classic images and portraits from the bookmarkable, browserrific Howard Schickler Gallery. [Via gmtPlus9.]
posted on Oct 28, 2002 - View this thread

The Russian Avant-Garde Book is an online version of the MoMA exhibit, featuring 112 books originally published in Russia during the intensely creative period between 1910 and 1934, before Stalin outlawed any style but social realism. The site is separated into three chronological themes and includes examples of futurist works, constructivist graphic design, children's books, propaganda, photography and photomontage, revolutionary imagery, architecture and industry, war themes, folk art and judaica...
posted on Oct 8, 2002 - View this thread