Panels for the Walls of the World: Phase II

Stan VanDerBeek was an American filmmaker and visual artist who pioneered experimental cinema and expanded animation into a multisensory, participatory practice. Working from the 1950s onward, he created abstract films, collage-based animations, and immersive environments that treated cinema as a tool for social communication and collective experience rather than passive consumption. His work combined found footage, hand-drawn animation, and sculptural installation, often layered with sound and projection to create what he termed 'expanded cinema.' VanDerBeek's practice anticipated many concerns of contemporary media art, from interactivity to the dissolution of boundaries between film, painting, and performance.