Poem Field #7

The 1967 computer-generated animation Poem Field #7 is one of ten films produced in the second half of the 1960s by experimental filmmaker Stan VanDerBeek and computer scientist Kenneth C. Knowlton. Their work together stands as a significant early instance of artistic and technological collaboration that resulted in advancements in both fields. 

The collaboration began in 1965 when VanDerBeek and Knowlton were introduced by Peter G. Neumann, a researcher at Bell Labs. VanDerBeek had already been working on motion animation, and was intrigued by what he termed the “the graphic possibilities” of the computer. “I looked on the computer as a challenge,” he later recalled: “a fast, high speed car,” “dangerous and unpredictable” but also “breathtaking.”

Knowlton, meanwhile, had in 1963 developed a specialized programming language for computer animations called BEFLIX, short for “Bell Flicks.” (In early 1964 used BEFLIX to make his first film, which was about the making of a film using BEFLIX.) The language was written in the Fortran Assembly Program on the IBM 7090 computer, with a Stromberg-Carlson SC4020 microfilm recorder for graphics output.

The pair used BEFLIX to create the eight films in the _Poem Field _series, in which poetic texts are animated against a brightly colored backdrop of geometric patterns and, in some cases, live-action footage. In his 1971 book Expanded Cinema, Gene Youngblood describes the films as “complex, syncretistic two-dimensional tapestries.”

Initially Knowlton did the programming according to VanDerBeek’s instructions, but soon after he created a package called TARPS which VanDerBeek could use to program the texts. The black-and-white graphics were then transferred to 16mm film to be edited and colorized under VanDerBeek’s direction (the colorizers were filmmakers Bob Brown and Frank Olvey). 

The four-minute Poem Field #7 takes as its basis an anti-war poem with the famous line “There is no way to peace, peace is the way.” In a short text describing the work, VanDerBeek refers to the computer-generated graphics, which center on what looks like a large cross or plus sign, as “accidental stylization of Christian myth/crosses.” The soundtrack is furnished by the first and fourth movements of John Cage’s 1943 composition Amores. The result is a work rich with layers of meaning.

Acquired from the Estate of Stan VanDerBeek