The Exploding Digital Inevitable

In 1976, groundbreaking collagist, sculptor and filmmaker Bruce Conner released his magnum opus, a 36-minute assemblage of US government footage of the iconic Bikini Atoll atomic bomb test. If Conner invented the modern found footage film with A Movie in 1958, he re-invented it with Crossroads. His editing of the film’s brilliant “dual” score—by seminal minimalist composer Terry Riley and synthesizer pioneer Patrick Gleeson—evokes a surreal beauty latent in the devastating images that comprises one of the most profound meditations on the nuclear era extant.

The Exploding Digital Inevitable is a live documentary essay integrating an array of movie and audio clips, still photographs, and rare archival documents that tells the story of Crossroads’ unique production, as well as the massive cultural spectacle of the original Bikini Atoll tests themselves—the singlemost recorded event in human history. It also chronicles the extraordinary collaboration of Conner with Riley and Gleeson, including original interviews with both composers. In joint presentation with Crossroads, the entire program runs 90 minutes. (Bruce Conner, USA, 1976, 36 minutes, DCP)

Ross Lipman is an independent filmmaker, archivist, and essayist. His films have screened throughout the world and been collected by museums and institutions including the Academy Film Archive, Anthology Film Archives, and Munich’s Sammlung Goetz. His feature documentary Notfilm was named one of the 10 best films of the year by Artforum, Slate, and many others.

Formerly Senior Film Restorationist at the UCLA Film & Television Archive, his many restorations include Barbara Loden’s Wanda, Kent Mackenzie’s The Exiles, and the Academy Award-winning documentary The Times of Harvey Milk. His writings on film history, technology, and aesthetics have been published in Artforum, Sight and Sound, and numerous academic books and journals.

With Ross Lipman in person for the presentation of his video essay, a post-show Q&A, and a post-screening book signing of his newest published work, The Archival Impermanence Project. This event is free and open to the public; doors will open thirty minutes prior to showtime.