Len Lye - Experimental Film

Len Lye (1901 - 1980) pursued a passion for experimentation and for creating new form throughout his whole career. His multifaceted practice included kinetic sculpture, photography, painting and poetry in addition to film making with and without a camera. He was one of the first non-Maori (Pākehā) artists from New Zealand to appreciate the art of Maori, Australian Aboriginal, Pacific Island and African cultures, which he incorporated into his own expression.

In the 1930s Lye was commissioned by the visionary film unit at the General Post Office in London and made a number of commercials that are now seen as seminal in the history of moving images. He made his first 'direct' (camera less) film, A Colour Box by painting directly onto the film in 1935, and from then on continued to develop the technique by interfering with the film stock in various ways. More