(May 22, 1935 – March 26, 2015)
SOUP CAN (1967)
16mm, color, silent 24fps, 1.5m
NORMA JEAN BAKER (1967)
16mm, color, silent 16fps, 2.5m
“_” (1968)
16mm, color, silent 24fps, 2.5m
BLACK (1969)
16mm, bw, silent 24fps, 2.5m
Not released.
UNDER THE JUGGERNAUT (1969)
16mm, color, sound, 8m
Made with an AFI production grant.
“Juggernaut is significant (to me) for several reasons: It was the most ambitious of my early animated collage films, exploring a number of social themes and using a variety of graphic/perceptual effects. Another reason is that the sound track was made for the film by Richard Landry, a friend and accomplished musician/composer. Landry’s sound track for Juggernaut is a beautiful saxophone solo that is stylistically similar to Philip Glass’ early music. I might mention that Landry was playing with Philip Glass at the time he made the sound track. This was during Glass’ early years. Landry continued to play with Glass, and others, for many years. (For example, he played in Glass’ first performance of Einstein on the Beach.) A final comment: Juggernaut, as you know was made with an AFI production grant. There were 4 of us that received grants and it was the first year the AFI awarded these grants. (In fact, it was the year that the AFI was established.) Paul Sharits, Storm de Hirsch and a west coast animator (if memory serves) were the other recipients. The awards committee consisted of Willard Van Dyke, James Blue and Stanley Kauffmann. (I’m surprised I’m remembering all of this.)” (R.R. email to Mark Toscano)
OUT OF ORDER (ca.1969)
16mm, color, 4m
Not a completed film.
“A test film that followed Juggernaut and used a similar approach.” (R.R.)
FAKE NEWSREAL (1970)
16mm, color, sound, 5m
NEURON (1972)
16mm, bw & color, sound, 6m
BRAIN FIELD (1974)
16mm, color, sound, 7.5m
PRIMARY STIMULUS (1977)
16mm, bw, sound, 13m
This is the original cut of the film. In 1980, Russett shortened it to 8.5m, and this shorter version should be considered the film’s final and approved form.
VERTICAL LIGHT (ca.1977)
16mm, color, 6m
Never finished.
“I should also mention that some of the film footage I’ve shipped is from works that were not completed, but I felt should be sent to you. Vertical Light, for example, although unfinished, contains content that I feel is meaningful and that, to a certain extent, provides additional insight into my work with abstract animation.” (R.R. email to Mark Toscano)
PRIMARY STIMULUS: RED HITS GREEN (ca.1977)
16mm., color, sound, 5.5m
Never screened publicly. The black and white lines are instead red and green.
L’ACADIE: AN ALBUM OF 16MM EKTACHROME SKETCHES (1979)
16mm, color, sound, 16m
“There is a technical issue that I would like to bring to your attention regarding L’Acadie (and to some extent it concerns my other films as well.) L’Acadie was shot on Ektachrome reversal stock and when printed on Ektachome reversal stock produced very good results. (All the prints I sent were printed on reversal.) However, as you know, some time during the eighties reversal film was no longer being used, which meant I had to make an inter-negative in order to make prints. The results I got were terrible –completely unsatisfactory. Somehow the delicate warm color, soft blurs and high-key quality of the imagery (produced with a customized form of re-photography) was not achieved –not even close. Perhaps a good lab and careful timing could produce a print from an inter-negative that more closely resembles my reversal print. I don’t know. Any way, should at some point a print of L’Acadie be attempted (or should it be digitized) the reversal prints I’m sending you could serve as a helpful color reference. I mention all this because, over the years, this has been a source of frustration, and also because L’Acadie is a film that I hold in very high regard. It’s special to me in a number of respects.” (R.R. email to Mark Toscano)
PRIMARY STIMULUS (1980)
16mm, bw, sound, 8.5m
A revised, shorter version of the original film. This is the final and approved version.
PRIMARY STIMULUS (Installation #1) (1980)
An installation version for which three prints of the shorter (8min.) version are looped and rear-projected in a specially designed projection chamber. The optical track on these prints may have been re-recorded.
PRIMARY STIMULUS (Installation #2) (1982)
Another installation version for which five prints of the shorter version are looped and projected in a specially designed projection environment which includes free-standing forms located in the space. The optical track on these prints is a re-recorded one.
PRIMARY STIMULUS (Installation #3) (ca.1982)
A third installation version for which three prints of the shorter version were projected side-by-side, and slightly out of sync to create a canonic sound/image relationship. This was only shown in Russett’s studio, never in public.
APRÉS MIDI (1981)
16mm, color, sound, 7.5m
“Because this film was made using the same technique I used to produce L’Acadie (re-photography) I have a concern about making prints from an inter-negative.” (R.R. email to Mark Toscano)
SMALL FOVEAL FIELDS (1981)
16mm, color, sound, 5.5m
E.J. BELLOCQ: PROCESSED (1982)
video, color, sound, 21m
TOUCH OF EVIL: AN INTERLACED RECONSTRUCTION (1987)
“Touch of Evil: An Interlaced Reconstruction is a cubistic montage that makes use of a three-dimensional interlaced projection system to recycle and transform Orson Welles’ 1957 motion picture classic, Touch of Evil. The installation consists of film and slide projections that are displayed on a sculptured corrugated surface 6’8″ high, 12′ long and 3′ deep. A 16mm motion picture projector and a 35mm slide projector are placed side by side in two separated locations and angled so that the various sections of the display surface are covered with an array of alternating images. The result is an interlaced pattern of film and slide projections that can be viewed paradigmatically as well as syntagmatically, thereby transforming the temporal and spatial relationships of the original version of Touch of Evil. My aim with this piece is to create a personal and abstract interpretation of Orson Welles’ motion picture by using edited excerpts of his imagery and reconstructing this footage into a new and multifaceted film presentation. The sound track for Touch of Evil: An Interlaced Reconstruction, which is recorded separately on audio tape, consists of edited and looped portions of the original sound track.” (R.R.)
SECRETS OF THE FAMILY / SECRETS DE FAMILLE (1988)
16mm, color, silent 24fps, 24.5m
“I was never able to get a satisfactory print of the film because of the previously discussed inter-negative problem. It was, therefore, never finished and screened in public.” (R.R. email to Mark Toscano)
FRANKENSTEIN
video, color, sound, 8.5m
*
Robert Russett’s bio (ca. 2008):
Robert Russett was born in 1935 in North Adams, Massachusetts, and was educated in the visual arts, receiving a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Following his graduate work at Cranbrook, Russett continued his studies for one year in Paris at Atelier 17 and then joined the Fine Arts faculty at the University of Southwestern Louisiana, now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. In the mid-sixties, with a background in painting and printmaking, he turned to motion pictures as a form of expression. His films, which he views as a kinetic extension of his work in the graphic arts, have had numerous showings in this country and abroad. For example, his films have been screened at the Museum of Modern Art (NYC), the Whitney Museum’s New American Filmmaker Series (NYC), the New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center, the Oberhausen Film Festival in West Germany, The World Festival of Animation in Zagreb, Yugoslavia and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. His film work has also been aired on PBS, The Learning Channel and Spanish National Television, TVE, Madrid. Prints of Russett’s films reside in many permanent collections including the Museum of Modern Art, the Annenburg Collection, the Australian National Film Library, and the Collection of Southern Independent Film.
In 1982, Russett also began using video as a medium of expression. His tapes and video installations have been shown widely, including exhibitions at SIGGRAPH (Los Angeles), the American Museum of the Moving Image (NYC), the Film Anthology Archives (NYC), the Madison Art Center in Wisconsin, and the International Symposium on Electronic Art in the Netherlands. Since 2005 Russett has expanded his use of media to include digital printmaking, the production of computer-based artworks on paper.
During his career Russett has been awarded a number of major production grants for filmmaking. In 1969, for example, he received a grant from the American Film Institute to produce an experimental film, and in 1971 he was the first artist to receive a MacDowell Colony Fellowship as resident filmmaker. He has since received two other MacDowell Fellowships, one in 1985 and the other in 1996. In addition, Russett was awarded grants in 1972 and 1980 by the University of Southwestern Louisiana Foundation and in 1982 he was the recipient of regional film grants from the Alabama Filmmakers Co-op and the Southwest Independent Production Fund. For his video work Russett received a fellowship to the Experimental Television Center in 1988 and a production grant from the Southwest Media Fellowship Program/Appalshop in 1989. He also received a Media Fellowship from the Louisiana Division of the Arts in 1995. His film works, as well as his recent excursions into video, have won numerous awards at festivals and exhibitions throughout the country.
Although primarily a media artist, Russett frequently publishes articles about the technical and historical aspects of animation, computer art and electronic imaging. His scholarly writings, for example, have appeared in a variety of publications including Film Culture, Filmmakers Monthly, Photomethods, The American Music Journal and Leonardo. In addition, he has, with film writer Cecile Starr, co-authored a book — Experimental Animation: Origins of a New Art — published by Da Capo Press. A forthcoming book, entitled HYPERANIMATION: Digital Images and Virtual Worlds, will be published by John Libbey and Co. in Spring 2009. A Distinguished Professor and an Endowed Honor Professor while at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Russett taught courses in media studies in the Visual Arts Department. He is now Emeritus Professor of Visual Arts and a full time artist and writer.
Robert Russett, from email to Mark Toscano:
“During the 1960s I made a number of animated collage films – at first they were made on Super 8mm, then later in 16mm. During this period I produced an assortment of test clips in conjunction with these films and would, at times, even reshoot these short films in an attempt to improve the timing, etc. At other times I would combine (cut together) clips from different films, as yet another approach to the collage process. This was a pattern (a method) that was repeated as my work with film developed during those early years.”
LIGHTSTRUCK 