LUX MRes Public Lecture: Rock ‘n’ Roll and Experimental Film

David E. James will introduce his new book, Rock ‘N’ Film: Cinema’s Dance With Popular Music, and discuss the avant-garde’s negotiations with rock ‘n’ roll, including the origins of music video in the avant-garde. Screenings may include Cosmic Ray (Bruce Conner), Rabbit’s Moon (Kenneth Anger), Rock ‘n’ Roll Film. (Thom Andersen) “We Love You” (Peter Whitehead) US Down By The Riverside (Jud Yalkut)  “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide” from D A. Pennbaker’s Ziggy Stardust The Motion Picture  and Mongoloid (Bruce Conner).


David E. James is Professor of Film at the University of Southern California. His previous books include Allegories of Cinema: American Film in the Sixties (Princeton University Press, 1989), To Free the Cinema:  Jonas Mekas and the New York Underground (Princeton University Press, 1992), The Most Typical Avant-Garde: History and Geography of Minor Cinemas in Los Angeles (University of California Press, 2006), and the co-edited volume Optic Antics: The Cinema of Ken Jacobs (Oxford University Press, 2011). James has served on the editorial boards of Cinema Journal, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, Now Time, and Art Week. He has also published two books of poetry, and his films have screened at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Los Angeles Filmforum and Canyon Cinema in San Francisco. His teaching and research interests currently focus on avant-garde cinema, culture in Los Angeles, East-Asian cinema, film and music, and working-class culture. He is currently Distinguished Visiting Scholar, Centre for Film and Screen, Cambridge University.
LUX Mres Art: Moving Image Public Lecture Series is an ongoing series of presentations by key thinkers on contemporary moving image practice sponsored by the LUX / Central Saint Martins Mres Art: Moving Image programme.
Mres Art: Moving Image is a unique collaboration between LUX and Central St Martins College of Art: a research led masters degree to address the rich and fascinating histories, theories and aesthetics that have led to artists turn to film and video, lead by Dr Lucy Reynolds. The Mres Art: Moving Image programme is now open for applications for 2016/17. For more information see CSM website.