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Ed Bowes
Ed Bowes is a filmmaker, writer, and director who pioneered the use of video as cinema. The first person to make a feature-length film in video, he used poets, musicians, artists, video- and filmmakers as performers in films such as Romance (1975) and Better, Stronger (1978–79). As a result of the notice given to his camera work, Bowes began his long career as a cinematographer for filmmakers and video artists including Kathryn Bigelow, Lizzie Borden, Vito Acconci, and Robert Longo, among others. In the 1970s, he was instrumental in creating early exhibitions of video art at MoMA, The Kitchen, and other Downtown New York venues. He taught advanced filmmaking for more than three decades at the School of Visual Arts, where he influenced several generations of contemporary filmmakers. His work is in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden. It is also represented in The Kitchen Archive at The Getty Research Institute and the Long Beach Museum of Art Video Archive.
After two years at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, NY, Ed Bowes decided to pursue filmmaking and transferred to The New School for Social Research in New York City. Bowes’ first job was as an assistant to filmmaker and photographer Arnold Eagle on projects with artist and filmmaker Hans Richter, and photographers Cornell Capa, Gjon Mili, and Philippe Halsman. He started working in films as an assistant editor on Paper Lion and unit manager on Alice’s Restaurant and A New Leaf. He also worked on the development and line production of Jacques Levi's projected adaptation of Abbie Hoffman's Revolution for the Hell of It and Hillard Elkins’ staging of A Doll’s House.
In the 1970s, Bowes began working independently. He showed poet Bernadette Mayer how to use a 35mm camera. In 1970, they wrote the screenplay Fast Food, and she produced Memory, her photographic diary of a month in their lives, in July of 1971. Bowes and Mayer went on to make the videos Sexless and matter in 1973. Then, with poet Clark Coolidge, Bowes made the number of, niggle, and headland in 1974. These videos were screened at the Holly Solomon Gallery in the first exhibition of Ed Bowes’ work that same year.
In 1975, when invited to produce a radio play for the Audio-Experimental Theatre on WBAI FM—in a series that included Meredith Monk, Helen Adam, Vito Acconci, John Cage, Philip Glass, Joan Jonas, Yvonne Rainer, Robert Wilson, and Richard Foreman—Bowes returned to a previous subject and broadcast Sexless/Half a Family, featuring a large cast from the arts community.
In 1975, Bowes focused on Romance (156 min), his major feature film, which he wrote, produced and directed. Romance was the first feature-length fictional narrative made in video. In it, Bowes used cinema craft and technique to shadow and subvert the structure and content of conventional narrative fiction—for example, casting a woman, Karen Achenbach, as the lead male character. The film concludes in a final, highly choreographed, 20-minute single take. Romance premiered with a four-night screening at The Kitchen, and was also televised on WNYC.
In the same spirit of experimentation, Ed Bowes wrote, directed and produced his next three feature films: Better, Stronger (1978), How to Fly (1980) and Spitting Glass (1990). He drew his cast from the arts community, including Vito Acconci, Mary Barnan, Elizabeth Cannon, Joan Schwartz, Karen Achenbach, Gregor Hornyak, James Dagliesh, Ed Friedman, Phil O’Reilly, Rochelle Kraut, Kenny Goodman, Donald Munroe, Richard Tiernan, Anne Troy, Charles Ruas, Juris Jurjevics, Robert Longo, John McNulty, Cindy Sherman, Eric Bogosian, Rosie Hall and Ed's brother, Tom Bowes, among others.
Better, Stronger was a great success, shown in New York City at The Kitchen and MoMA, and screened in venues across Europe and the United States, including the U.S. Film Festival. When it was televised on WNET’s The TV Lab in 1979, it received the highest ratings of the year. Sound was by Robert Longo.
With How to Fly in 1980, Bowes abandoned plot entirely, finding other forms of structure. He wanted to show that stories do not have to obsessively organize and explain data, and that television’s hundreds of simultaneous, fragmented narratives—news, fiction, commercials, sports, etc.—had prepared audiences for this new type of structure.
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Ed Bowes
Ed Bowes is a filmmaker, writer, and director who pioneered the use of video as cinema. The first person to make a feature-length film in video, he used poets, musicians, artists, video- and filmmakers as performers in films such as Romance (1975) and Better, Stronger (1978–79). As a result of the notice given to his camera work, Bowes began his long career as a cinematographer for filmmakers and video artists including Kathryn Bigelow, Lizzie Borden, Vito Acconci, and Robert Longo, among others. In the 1970s, he was instrumental in creating early exhibitions of video art at MoMA, The Kitchen, and other Downtown New York venues. He taught advanced filmmaking for more than three decades at the School of Visual Arts, where he influenced several generations of contemporary filmmakers. His work is in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden. It is also represented in The Kitchen Archive at The Getty Research Institute and the Long Beach Museum of Art Video Archive.
After two years at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, NY, Ed Bowes decided to pursue filmmaking and transferred to The New School for Social Research in New York City. Bowes’ first job was as an assistant to filmmaker and photographer Arnold Eagle on projects with artist and filmmaker Hans Richter, and photographers Cornell Capa, Gjon Mili, and Philippe Halsman. He started working in films as an assistant editor on Paper Lion and unit manager on Alice’s Restaurant and A New Leaf. He also worked on the development and line production of Jacques Levi's projected adaptation of Abbie Hoffman's Revolution for the Hell of It and Hillard Elkins’ staging of A Doll’s House.
In the 1970s, Bowes began working independently. He showed poet Bernadette Mayer how to use a 35mm camera. In 1970, they wrote the screenplay Fast Food, and she produced Memory, her photographic diary of a month in their lives, in July of 1971. Bowes and Mayer went on to make the videos Sexless and matter in 1973. Then, with poet Clark Coolidge, Bowes made the number of, niggle, and headland in 1974. These videos were screened at the Holly Solomon Gallery in the first exhibition of Ed Bowes’ work that same year.
In 1975, when invited to produce a radio play for the Audio-Experimental Theatre on WBAI FM—in a series that included Meredith Monk, Helen Adam, Vito Acconci, John Cage, Philip Glass, Joan Jonas, Yvonne Rainer, Robert Wilson, and Richard Foreman—Bowes returned to a previous subject and broadcast Sexless/Half a Family, featuring a large cast from the arts community.
In 1975, Bowes focused on Romance (156 min), his major feature film, which he wrote, produced and directed. Romance was the first feature-length fictional narrative made in video. In it, Bowes used cinema craft and technique to shadow and subvert the structure and content of conventional narrative fiction—for example, casting a woman, Karen Achenbach, as the lead male character. The film concludes in a final, highly choreographed, 20-minute single take. Romance premiered with a four-night screening at The Kitchen, and was also televised on WNYC.
In the same spirit of experimentation, Ed Bowes wrote, directed and produced his next three feature films: Better, Stronger (1978), How to Fly (1980) and Spitting Glass (1990). He drew his cast from the arts community, including Vito Acconci, Mary Barnan, Elizabeth Cannon, Joan Schwartz, Karen Achenbach, Gregor Hornyak, James Dagliesh, Ed Friedman, Phil O’Reilly, Rochelle Kraut, Kenny Goodman, Donald Munroe, Richard Tiernan, Anne Troy, Charles Ruas, Juris Jurjevics, Robert Longo, John McNulty, Cindy Sherman, Eric Bogosian, Rosie Hall and Ed's brother, Tom Bowes, among others.
Better, Stronger was a great success, shown in New York City at The Kitchen and MoMA, and screened in venues across Europe and the United States, including the U.S. Film Festival. When it was televised on WNET’s The TV Lab in 1979, it received the highest ratings of the year. Sound was by Robert Longo.
With How to Fly in 1980, Bowes abandoned plot entirely, finding other forms of structure. He wanted to show that stories do not have to obsessively organize and explain data, and that television’s hundreds of simultaneous, fragmented narratives—news, fiction, commercials, sports, etc.—had prepared audiences for this new type of structure.
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