Tal Farlow, 1980

Tal Farlow,  ca. 1957, 2 mins

Lye created a series of black-and-white scratched images in the 1950s that were more regular and geometric than those of Free Radicals. He combined them with “Rock ‘n’ Rye”, a piece by jazz guitarist Tal Farlow. At that time Lye did not complete the project. He returned to it in 1980 but died before he could finish synchronizing his images to the music. His assistant Steven Jones completed the editing under the supervision of Lye’s widow Ann (who had been closely involved with all of Lye’s American films).