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One of two short films Bruce Conner made for Brian Eno and David Byrne's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts-a defining work of musical assemblage-MEA CULPA (1981) comes near the end of Conner's active filmmaking career.
Read MoreIt may have been an unusual sight—an elder statesmen from the Beat Generation slam dancing with teenagers. But punk invigorated Bruce Conner. For MONGOLOID (1978), the short film Conner began preparing after seeing Devo on their first tour, Conner spliced together newsreel, educational, and b-movie footage which resonated with their satirical lyrics about an underdeveloped man-child who is determined to contribute to mainstream American society.
Read MoreIt was Dennis Hopper holding the lights for Bruce Conner as he filmed Toni Basil dancing for BREAKAWAY (1966), the short film set to her song of the same name. A rare example of a Conner musical film containing all original photography, what makes the film unquestionably his is the frenetic editing and the evanescence of his subject, a sensual spirit flickering in celluloid.
Read MoreIt's been said that MTV owes Bruce Conner a paycheck. Decades before music videos pervaded popular culture, the experimental filmmaker pioneered techniques of non-narrative montage and high-speed editing by cutting thousands of images to a pop music soundtrack. THREE SCREEN RAY (2006) is a reimagined and expanded version of COSMIC RAY (1961), a literal cinematic slot machine where three reels of images meet and diverge and meet again.
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