[Frameworks] Avant Garde Film and Meditative Practice

Mon Oct 27 14:32:36 CDT 2025

Will Hindle’s Saint Flournoy Lobos-Logos … (1970) begins and ends with a man in meditation.

-Carlos

> On Oct 27, 2025, at 11:51 AM, Seth Mitter <seth.mitter at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Maybe tangentially related to this thread is Scott Bartlett's The Sound of One (1976) <https://canyoncinema.com/catalog/film/?i=164>, which supposedly came about through Scott's study of T'ai Chi applied to handheld camera cinematography. Like a proto-steadicam achieved through disciplined body movement and balance. 
> Only exists as one or two fading prints so far as I'm aware. It is sorely in need of someone to champion preservation before it disappears forever.
> 
> Robert Fulton was mentioned before, Path of Cessation (1974) <https://canyoncinema.com/catalog/film/?i=952> might be a good place to start with Tibetan monastery footage  (and chanting, if I'm remembering correctly). Robert also had a special handheld shooting style with some affinity to the Scott Bartlett T'ai Chi film, especially notable in Starlight <https://canyoncinema.com/catalog/film/?i=953> and Vineyard IV <https://canyoncinema.com/catalog/film/?i=955>
> On Sun, Oct 26, 2025 at 9:43 PM Heath Iverson <heathiverson0 at gmail.com <mailto:heathiverson0 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>> Thanks for the suggestion Fred. I actually have a note on Brakhage talking a bit like a Yoga teacher in a workshop flagged from Film at Wit's End "Sit wherever your eyes feel most awake — floor, chair, corner — it doesn’t matter. You see differently when your spine is your own tripod.” Thanks for that too. 
>> 
>> On Sun, Oct 26, 2025 at 10:31 AM Fred Camper <f at fredcamper.com <mailto:f at fredcamper.com>> wrote:
>>> Brakhage would not normally be associated with any of this, but you might consider his two minute silent film Angels' — no specific reference to your topic, but almost empty of images, almost emptying of the viewer too.
>>> 
>>> On 10/26/2025 9:09 AM, Heath Iverson wrote:
>>>> Thanks for the thoughts all!
>>>> 
>>>> I am indeed curating a program around this concept. The Sharits and Whitney catalogs are already in the mix--especially Whitney's work as it relates to sacred number and geometry. There's also Jordan Belson's SAMHADI. I've got the formal, abstract/metaphoric angle covered; now I am looking for films with literal ("pro-filmic" like they say in the biz) instances of these practices and their material culture and expression. Im interested not just in the formal representation of subjective yogic/meditation states, but how these practices are metabolized by a largely western avant-garde form. Given the strong counter-cultural overlap of the mid century underground/experimental/artist film world and the adjacent new age/new spiritualist movements I expect there'd be some good examples but, not much comes to mind... there are some hare krishnas accidentally in Mekas' films...
>>>> 
>>>> On Sun, Oct 26, 2025 at 3:49 AM Gabriele Jutz <gabriele.jutz at uni-ak.ac.at <mailto:gabriele.jutz at uni-ak.ac.at>> wrote:
>>>>> I suggest Transit(ive) by Canadian filmmaker Sarah Bliss (HD video created from 16mm projection performance with digital sound, recorded on digital video. 06:36.  2017).
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> In her artist statement, Sarah Bliss describes herself as “a filmmaker, artist, educator, and Buddhist practitioner who facilitates presence and attunement with the sensate, desiring body.”
>>>>> 
>>>>> Transit(ive) is the result of the artist’s manual interaction with the projector lens, while the soundtrack presents a cell-phone recording of her father’s dying breath. The act of expiration, literally “breathing out,” is associated with death. Transit(ive) is a video document of death and loss, as well as a techno-spiritual reunion with the artist’s father following his death.
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> Here you can find more about Transit(ive): https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/3775230/3775231
>>>>> 
>>>>> (chapter “Lungs to Ears”)
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> -----------------------------------------
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Hon. Prof. Mag. Dr. Gabriele Jutz
>>>>> Universität für angewandte Kunst
>>>>> Abteilung für Medientheorie
>>>>> 
>>>>> T +43 699 12 10 81 44
>>>>> 
>>>>> dieangewandte.at <http://dieangewandte.at/>
>>>>> medientheorie.ac.at <http://medientheorie.ac.at/>
>>>>> Postsparkasse
>>>>> 
>>>>> Georg-Coch-Platz 2
>>>>> 
>>>>> HP Raum 022
>>>>> 1010 Wien / Austria
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> https://dieangewandte.academia.edu/GabrieleJutz
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>>  
>>>>>  
>>>>>  
>>>>> Von: Frameworks <frameworks-bounces at film-gallery.org <mailto:frameworks-bounces at film-gallery.org>> im Auftrag von Dave Tetzlaff <djtet53 at gmail.com <mailto:djtet53 at gmail.com>>
>>>>> Antworten an: Frameworks posts <frameworks at film-gallery.org <mailto:frameworks at film-gallery.org>>
>>>>> Datum: Sonntag, 26. Oktober 2025 um 06:23
>>>>> An: Frameworks posts <frameworks at film-gallery.org <mailto:frameworks at film-gallery.org>>
>>>>> Betreff: Re: [Frameworks] Avant Garde Film and Yoga
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> Well, there are a fair number of avant garde films that ARE yogic/meditative/spiritual practices in form somehow without PHOTOGRAPHING such practices as they exist in the real world [or as we say in the biz (sic) "the pro filmic event"]
>>>>> 
>>>>> Paul Sharits: Mandala Films
>>>>> 
>>>>> Ernie Gehr: Serene Velocity*
>>>>> 
>>>>> John and James Whitney 
>>>>> 
>>>>> (and others germane to The Center for Visual Music)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Scott Bartlet: Off/On
>>>>> 
>>>>> Anthony McCall
>>>>> 
>>>>> Several shorts in The FluxFilm anthology, though 'Zen for Film' might not qualify depending on how you take it. 😉
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> In some cases the artists expressed some meditative/spiritual intent. In others, it kinds works out that way regardless. The cited above are just what comes to my mind at the moment. There are more for sure...
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> If you were curating a program on your stated theme, you might mix these formal examples with representational ones in interesting ways an audience might appreciate.
>>>>> 
>>>>> -- Frameworks mailing list Frameworks at film-gallery.org <mailto:Frameworks at film-gallery.org> https://mail.film-gallery.org/mailman/listinfo/frameworks_film-gallery.org
>>>>> 
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