Disa Lareau

We often think of still images or paintings when we think of portraiture. Freezing a moment and capturing someone's face at a specific time, and perhaps capturing some of that person's essence in that fraction of a second. Between 1964 and 1966,  Screen Tests , a series of short, silent, black-and-white film portraits, was made by  Andy Warhol . [1] Comparing still imagery and painting versus moving images on film as a means of creating portraiture raises questions about the difference in those mediums in terms of how we experience the outcome differently. W hat is the difference in the perceived effect of still versus moving portraiture?    A movie camera rests on a tripod. Warhol uses two one or two lights against a black or white background. [2] He was interested in creating tension with the subject against a neutral background. He was also interested in changes happening with the subject in the duration of the sitting. [3] The camera (not necess...

Stan Brakhage, Dog Star Man (1961-64). One of the most famous works in experimental cinema, and loaded visual stimuli,  Dog Star Man  (1961-1964), by Stan Brakhage, consists of four parts and is thought as a seasonally structured piece that reflects on the history and experiences of man. Prelude is an explosively fast, paced experience. A rapid burst of images showing all the elements of the earth. Organs, birth, a woman´s naked body, trees, burning sun, water, cold and warm landscape. Streetlights at night. Electricity, energy, vibration, other planets, electrical bursts, chaos, and colored light. Layers of images floating on top of each other with electrical-like shots. The experience is otherworldly like, but also, earthly matter and life connecting with the cosmos, with no restrictions when traveling through different dimensions and transcending linear time, making the viewer feel it is all connected. Brakhage takes a somewhat surrealist approach, attem...