The New York Comics & Picture-Story Sympoisum: Filmmaker/Animator Ernie Gehr

The New York Comics & Picture-Story Symposium is a weekly forum for discussing the tradition and future of text/image work. Open to the public, it meets Tuesday nights from 7-9 p.m. EST in New York City. Presentations vary weekly and include everything from historical topics and technical demonstrations to creators presenting their work. Check out upcoming meetings here.

At the 80^th meeting on April 1st, filmmaker/animator Ernie Gehr came in for a talk on his work and the moving image in general. Considered one of the most influential experimental filmmakers, Gehr has won a considerable number of awards for his films. He has taught at UC Berkeley and Harvard. His work was also featured in the January 14^th issue of Art Forum.

Gehr began the talk with a very brief history of the moving image. He touched on Shadow Plays as the first form of moving image art, and then moved on to the subject of Magic Lantern shows. Magic Lantern shows are images painted on glass: usually 3 by 4 or 3 ½ by 3 ¼. They are either static images shown in sequence, or images that have levers that have to be mechanically manipulated in order to display a sense of movement.

Magic Lantern shows were at the height of their popularity during the 17^th century and faded during the 19^th century. Ultimately, movies took over the niche that Magic Lantern shows had created for themselves.

Gehr then moved on to a discussion of movies, noting them as having started shortly before the 20^th century. His first exposure to these moving images was around 3 or 4 years old, when his mother took him to the cinema. However, around age 8-12 is when he became enthralled by flip books. He was captivated by what he called the flip book’s “magical qualities.” He was continuously aware that the illusion of motion that the flip book was created was composed of sequential still images. Gehr was fascinated by the blurring of images when the pictures were flipped, and how “motion” could be used to accelerate the images, slow them down, and run them both backward and forward.

Gehr says he finds himself fascinated with with film’s psychological, optical processes. He finds it interesting how film is an intermittent process. Half the time the viewer is looking at image, the other half there is nothing on screen. It is a sensual process that is also incredibly brutal.

Gehr went on to show two short films that he created at the beginning of his career. He presented them on analog tapes, which he had transferred from the original 16mm film. They were purposefully out-of-focus and without color correction.

The first piece, “Morning,” was shot in 1968. Its running length was 4 minutes. The film was a static shot of a bedroom window, as the sun rises through it. The shutter length was manipulated with each frame to give it both a flickering quality and to emphasize the sunrise. This short film mirrored Gehr’s own awakening to certain possibilities of cinema.

The second film Gehr showed from this period was titled “Wait.” Running around seven minutes long, “Wait” was shot over the course of four evenings in the apartment of artists Gary and Sharon Smith. Wait. Another static film, “Wait” is tableau where the Smiths sit at their dining room table. The shutter’s exposure is manipulated with every frame, and the Smiths occasionally adjust their position. The image flashes to bright intensity and drowns in darkness as the shutter exposure is adjusted. The film’s title was a challenge to the viewer to take in the static image and not force a narrative upon it.

Then Gehr showed the short film “Shift.” Recorded from an apartment located at the cross streets of Wooster and Houston in New York City, this film shows a series of cars, both stationary and moving. The composition shows only a pristine street and cars, with no people visible. It is narrated with car and engine sounds taken from various fx recordings. Gehr said that he thought of New York as a Reconstructed Grand Canyon, and that the cars of New York were the animals which inhabited it. He wanted the piece to be an observation of those animals.

Speaking about his own work, Gehr said that he likes a piece that has no definite beginning or ending and strives for ambiguity when it comes to meaning. He expressed his own discomfort with being labeled Avant-Garde, as he does not feel that his work is an advanced guard of culture that others would follow. He also felt uncomfortable with the term “Minimalism” being applied to his work, as he believes such terms can be a “straightjacket” not only for his creative outlet, but also for the viewer’s expectations.

When asked about how things have changed since the 70s and 80s, Gehr said the way people watch movies is different. He lamented how much viewing is now done on laptops, and that the desire to spend entire days in movie theaters is no longer prevalent among youth. He said that spaces where experimental films could be shot were much more available in the past, and that the artists of his time were into new experiences and were not into making money.

Screen shots for the above-mentioned works weren’t available. For a great example of Gehr’s work, please watch his film Serene Velocity (1970). This film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

***

Image Credit:

1. Portrait of Ernie Gehr, The New York Times, November 11th, 2011

***

Stephen Moles is a writer who lives in Brooklyn