Programme Symposium on motion composing
23 and 24 October 2019

An international symposium will examine Len Lye's oeuvre, which includes experimental, documentary and advertising films as well as kinetic sculptures and buildings. Speakers from New Zealand, Canada, Australia, Austria, Germany and Switzerland will discuss Lye’s impact on 20th century avant-gardes. In cooperation with the Seminar for Media Studies of the University of Basel. The conference, held in English, is open to the public, admission is free.

Venues: Eikones Forum and Seminar for Media Studies, Basel

Wednesday, 23.10.
Eikones Forum, Rheinsprung 11, Basel

9:00
Doors open, registration

9:45
Welcome
Roland Wetzel, Director Museum Tinguely
Emanuel Welinder, Seminar for Media Studies, Basel

10:15
Presentation 1
Ann Stephen, Senior Curator, The University of Sydney, AUS
The Oceanic primitivism of Len Lye’s Tusalava

11:00
Coffee Break

11:30
Presentation 2
Roger Horrocks, Emeritus Professor, University of Auckland, NZ
A New Art of Movement

12:15
Panel 1
Moderation Emanuel Welinder, Seminar for Media Studies, Basel

12:45
Lunch Break

14:00
Introduction
Emanuel Welinder, Seminar for Media Studies, Basel

14:15
Presentation 3
Daniel Kothenschulte, film critic and curator, Köln, D
Happy Modernity, Len Lye’s abstract films between avant-garde and mass culture

15:00
Presentation 4
Michelle Menzies, independent curator, Melbourne, AUS
Aerial Movement: Tracing the Contours of Full Fathom Five

15:45
Coffee Break

16:15
Presentation 5
Alla Gadassik, Assistant Professor, Emily Carr University of Art + Design, Vancouver, CA
Twenty-Four Signatures per Second: Direct Animation and Gestural Repetition

17:00
Panel 2
Moderation Matthias Wittmann, Seminar for Media Studies, Basel

18:30
Film programme 1 at Stadtkino Basel
Len Lye’s Colour Box
Everything is rhythm in the handmade films of Len Lye. The programme presents his colourful, playful abstract and semi-abstract experimental and art films. With an introduction by Roger Horrocks (Auckland, NZ).








Thursday, 24.10.2019
Seminar for Media Studies, Holbeinstrasse 12, Basel

9:00
Doors open, registration

9:30
Welcome, Introduction
Andres Pardey, Vice-Director, Museum Tinguely, curator of Len Lye – motion composer, Basel, CH
Concepts of kinetic sculpture in the 1960s – between engineering and bricolage

10:00
Presentation 6
Paul Brobbel, Len Lye Curator, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth NZ
Bounding Steel Sculptures: the exhibition of Lye’s tangibles in the 1960s

10:45
Presentation 7
Barbara Flueckiger, Professor for Film Studies, University of Zurich, CH
The Material Aesthetics of Len Lye‘s Experimental Color Films in the 1930s

11:30
Coffee Break

11:45
Presentation 8
Evan Webb, Director of the Len Lye Foundation, NZ
Len Lye: Thinking Big

12:30
Panel 3
Moderation Giorgio Bloch, art historian, visual artist, Basel, CH

13:00
Lunch Break

14:00
Introduction
Andres Pardey and Giorgio Bloch

14:15
Presentation 9
Megan Tamati-Quennell, Art Curator at Te Papa, Wellington, NZ – Curator modern & contemporary Maori & Indigenous art
The power and dynamism of taonga: Len Lye’s impulse for Indigenous art

15:00
Presentation 10
Janine Randerson, Associate Professor, Postgraduate Department at the School of Art and Design at Auckland University of Technology, NZ
Earthly, Meteorological and Aqueous: Len Lye’s kinetic assemblages and planetary aesthetics

15:45
Coffee Break

16:15
Presentation 11
Amelie Klein, independent curator, Vienna, AU
Who’s afraid of Terminator?
Robots: utopia, dystopia and what we should discuss instead

17:00
Panel 4
Moderation Giorgio Bloch, art historian, visual artist

18:30
Film programme 2 at Stadtkino Basel
Len Lye on the home front
From a surreal film poem about eating well and food rationing to a disturbingly intense educational film about close combat, these are Len Lye’s propaganda films made for the British Ministry of Information in the 1940s. Introduction by Paul Brobbel (New Plymouth, NZ).

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