In 2022 Bradley Eros commissioned me to write an original score for his two imageless filmworks Colour Theory and Maya. that were presented at the Maya Deren Theater at Anthology Film Archives in New York City. A camera recorded what happened on the screen and a video of the performance can be viewed if you scroll down. Also their will be a download of the tracks on Bandcamp.

Imageless Films: Maya

By Marcos Ortega on Thu, 22/09/2022 - 05:20

If there’s one central element that would seem to be intrinsic and indispensable to any reasonable definition of the cinema it would be the presence of imagery, whether photographed, animated, or generated through more experimental methods such as hand-painting, scratching, collaging, and so on. Nevertheless, throughout the history of the medium, artists have challenged even this seemingly core tenet of the art form by producing works that subvert or entirely dispense with the image, by expanding the definition of the kinds of experience that can be shared within the space of the cinema, or by provocatively defining as “cinema” performances that might seem a thing apart.

These subversions of the idea of a medium of “moving images” have taken many forms: works that emphasize spoken dialogue or sound collages; films whose visual tracks consist primarily of written text; projector performances that showcase or manipulate light and darkness; flicker films; pure color studies; films that punctuate long stretches of darkness with near-subliminal bursts of imagery; and so on and so forth. The ongoing series, “Imageless Films”, which we’ve been presenting since April, represents an extended, in-depth, and multi-chapter exploration of the various ways that filmmakers and artists have experimented with the possibilities of an “imageless” cinema (or have played with the idea of “emptiness” or visual subtraction in a more general sense). Maya  or, Composition for Projection Booth, Projectors & Projectionists in the Maya Deren Theater (and booth) @ Anthology Film Archives
Bradley Eros, 2016/22, ca. 40 min, projector performance with Alex Westhelle & Genevieve H-K
Richard Sylvarnes : Original Music Composition & Performance