Frank Eidlitz Design Centre

Please be advised: This film features flashing lights that may potentially trigger seizures for people with photosensitive epilepsy.

The Frank Eidlitz Collection contains the 16mm and 35mm film work of graphic designer and visual artist Frank Eidlitz (1923–1997), predominantly made during a Winston Churchill Fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge in 1966. The collection contains Eidlitz’s experiments with light, movement and technology in film.

This short film features Frank Eidlitz’s early experiments with light, colour and motion. Commissioned by the television network National Broadcasting Company (NBC) to reinterpret the station’s classic peacock logo, Eidlitz produced a series of film experiments with kaleidoscopic spinning lights.

To create these visuals, Eidlitz covered a series of disks with pieces of reflective paper and fluorescent colours, which he then placed on an apparatus that spun the disks at a high speed. The motion could be varied and stopped at any time, allowing the artist to create varying designs and images.

The film features coloured glitter, spinning lights and metallic reflective surfaces accompanied by the NBC peacock. As well as the disk experiments, the film features several of Eidlitz’s other visual experiments, including close-ups of moving liquid in glass prisms, thick daubs of paint and textured surfaces.