Dialogues

Directed by George Landow.

Constructed around a found soundtrack in which a strict female voice delivers a test of perception and comprehension, Institutional Quality’s sound and image relationship become detached as the filmmakerloses interest in his subject.

Feature-length compilation program presenting 37 out of 41 original fluxfilms produced and directed in the 1960s by Fluxus artists, including George Maciunas, Nam June Paik, Yoko Ono, Robert Watts, Paul Sharits, et al.

An interpretation of The Confessions of Saint Augustine featuring an ordinary middle-aged man who undergoes a conversion experience whilst watching an experimental film. - Harvard Film Archive

A rapturous audio-visual mix that “deliberately seeks a hidden order in randomness.” The film combines the face of a woman in ecstatic, contemplative prayer with shots of an animal rights activist, and a scantily clad model advertising Russian cars at the International Auto Show, New York. - Harvard Film Archive

A reworking of an earlier film, Institutional Quality, in which the same test was given. In the earlier film, the person taking the test was not seen, and the film viewer in effect became the test taker. The newer version concerns itself with the effects of the test on the test taker. An attempt is made to escape from the oppressive environment of the test — a test containing meaningless, contradictory, and impossible-to-follow directions by entering into the imagination. —Canyon Cinema

An experimental short film by Owen Land, produced in 1970.

A radical Christian group's lecture tour of US colleges was filmed in the cinema verité tradition, with hand held camera, sync and wild sound. To avoid making a conventional documentary, the filmmaker created a dynamic collage by stroboscopically editing together pairs of scenes using a rapid rhythm of three-frame units.

An experimental short in which the degradation of film is shown over time.

As Landow and his students were testing a new video camera, an elderly man began to talk to them about new technology. This impromptu conversation forms the basis for a comparison of spoken and written language. - Harvard Film Archive