Film

Scape-Mates

1972 · 29m · Documentary

IMDb

5.9

In one of his first experiments in video, Emshwiller creates an electronic landscape of both abstract and figurative elements, where colorized dancers are chroma-keyed into a mutable, computer-animated environment. Working with the "Scan-i-mate," an early analog video synthesizer, Emshwiller choreographs an architectural, illusory video space, in which frames proliferate within frames, disembodied heads and hands move within a collage of animated forms, and the dancers and their environment are subjected to constant transformations through image processing. With its witty interplay of the "real" and the "unreal" in an electronically rendered videospace, and the skillful manipulation and articulation of a sculptural illusion of three-dimensionality, Scape-mates introduced a new vocabulary of video image-making.

Stoney Emshwiller

(voice)

Emery Hermans

Dancer

Sarah Shelton

Dancer

• Ed EmshwillerDirector · Writer
• John GodfreyEditor

Release date

July 27, 1972

Status

Released

Original language

English

Runtime

29m

Genres

Documentary