Stan VanDerBeek
DirectingAmerican experimental filmmaker Stan Vanderbeek began his career in the 1950’s after having studied art and architecture in New York and North Carolina. His earliest period (1955-1965) is marked by his animated painting and collage films which the artist and critic Daryl Chin regarded as having an “enormous vitality, bounding inventiveness and incendiary wit which was shared by such other collagists as Robert Breer, Bruce Conner, Dick Preston.” Films such as Science Friction (1959, 10’), Breathdeath (1963, 15’), A la Mode (1959, 7’) and Achoo Mr. Kerrooschev (1960, 2’) are from this period. In the 1960’s, in the context of his expanded cinema research, Vanderbeek started his audacious project of the “Movie Drome” theater, a space that allowed him to create an appropriate environment for his synesthetic works, which included film, performance and dance among other disciplines. The filmmaker spent about 10 years developing this project, which consisted of a huge dome that surrounded the audience and engulfed them in the images projected all around them. From the mid-1960’s, Vanderbeek ‘s appetite for exploring new technologies increased and tools such as video played a major part in the filmmaker’s work. This can be seen in his computer-animated films from this period such as Symmetricks (1972, 6’) and the Poemfield series of 8 computer generated animations (1966-1971). His work with computers and experiments with holograms reflected his desire to use the most complex technology to get as close as possible to the functioning of the human nervous system. In addition to his creative work in the fields of film and video art, Vanderbeek was a faculty member and artist-in-residence at a number of major universities. He died in 1984.
Known For
Filmography — Acting
Filmography — Crew
For Life, Against the War
Director
Achooo Mr. Kerrooschev
Director
Breathdeath
Director
Wheeeels No. 1
Director
Poem Field No. 5: Free Fall
Director
Fluids
Director
Poem Field Series
Director
Poemfield No. 1 (Blue Version)
Director
Videospace
Director
Black and White, Day and Night
Director
A La Mode
Director
Moirage
Director
Science Friction
Director
Movie-Drome
Director
Euclidean Illusions
Director
Who Ho Rays No. 1
Director
Poem Field No. 1
Director
Vision III
Director
Newsreel of Dreams 1 & 2
Director
Micro Cosmos 1-4
Director
Image After Image
Director
Poem Field No. 7
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Man and His World
Director
Superimposition
Director
Phenomenon No. 1
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Reeling in TV Time
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Vanishing Point Left
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Poem Field No. 6
Director
The Computer Generation
Director
Poem Field No. 2
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Poem Field No. 3
Director
Dance of the Looney Spoons
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Sonia and Stan Paint a Portrait of Ronnie
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Face Concert
Director
Site
Director
Facescapes
Director
See Saw Seams
Director
Poem Field No. 8
Director
The Birth of the American Flag
Director
Symmetricks
Director
Ad Infinitum
Director
Skullduggery
Director
Expo Faces
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What, Who, How
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The Human Face Is a Monument
Director
Film Form No. 1
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Mankinda
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Pastorale
Director
Wheeeeels No. 2
Director
The Smiling Workman
Director
Street Meat
Director
Spherical Space No. 1
Director
Mirrored Reason
Director
After Laughter
Director
Snapshots of the City
Director
Strobe Ode
Director
Self-Poured Traits
Director
Movie-Movies
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Collide: Oscope
Director
Poem Field No. 4
Director
Panels for the Walls of the World
Director
Oh
Director
Astral Man
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A Dam Rib Bed
Director
Summit
Director
Color Fields Left
Director