Paul Clipson

Paul Clipson (1965 – February 3, 2018) was an American experimental filmmaker and projectionist based in San Francisco. He is best known for his collaborations with musicians, such as Grouper and Jefre Cantu-Ledesma.^[1] Clipson's work usually took the shape of "hyper-imposed improvisations" edited live while his musical collaborators performed. Only later would he go back to edit a performance into a film.^[4] 2019 saw the release of Landscape Dissolves, a DVD by Re:voir and Students of Decay featuring 14 of Clipson's films from 2009 to 2014.

Clipson was born in 1965 in Cleveland, Ohio to Scottish designer Ann Gemmell Clipson and professor of architecture Colin Clipson.^[3] He grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan and moved to San Francisco in the 1990s.^[2]

In 1995 Clipson filmed his friend and performance artist Adam Heavenrich publicly improvising in San Francisco. The footage was captured on Super 8 film and largely edited in-camera. This resulted in BUCKY, a series of two-minute-long short films released over the next few years.^[5]

Clipson's work often took the shape of collaborations with musicians and sound artists. Inspired by musicians' "freedom to create on a whim", he used Super 8 and 16mm projectors to layer his film footage in a live environment.^[1] This type of work started in 2003 when Clipson began composing the visuals for the live performances of Cantu-Ledesma's band Tarentel.^[6] The two had been friends and colleagues since Clipson hired Cantu-Ledesma to work at the SFMOMA in 2002.^[2] They discussed the ways music and film can work together and started performing together.^[7] Three years later Clipson officially joined Tarentel as their full-time visual artist.^[2]

Clipson has been working as head projectionist and AV manager at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art since around 2000.^[2][8] In 2014 Clipson released REEL, a book composed of drawn and written notes from 1999 up to 2013 composed by Clipson for his colleagues at the museum. The book was published by LAND AND SEA.^[9] The book came with a 20-minute found footage film.^[10]

In 2015 Clipson collaborated with Harris on an experimental feature-length film called Hypnosis Display. The movie was a commission for Leeds Opera North. For the music Harris employed field recordings and cassette tapes.^[11]

In a 2017 Interview, Clipson details his creative process. He usually records footage without a purpose in mind to later use it in live collaborations with musicians, calling these sessions "hyper-imposed improvisations". Clipson goes on to describe his short films as "crystallizations of particular sections of footage I’ve become close to".^[4]

Paul Clipson died on February 3rd 2018.^[2]

In a 2017 interview, Clipson names American filmmaker Bruce Baillie as an influence.^[4] A 2018 obituary written by personal friend Max Goldberg and archived by SFMOMA shines a spotlight on Clispon's knowledge of film history. Goldberg goes on to mention the many influences of Clipson: Baillie, Otto Preminger, Chantal Akerman, Jonas Mekas, Stan Brakhage, Orson Welles, Frank Stauffacher, Saul Bass and Elia Kazan, among many others.^[12]

Zabriskie Point by Michelangelo Antonioni was one of Clipson's favorite movies.^[11]

Otie Wheeler, writing for MUBI Notebook, calls Clipson "an experimental, lyrical filmmaker in the tradition of Stan Brakhage".^[4]

Clipson's death has been mourned by many artists worldwide, but especially in the local bay area scene. Scott Barley called Clipson an "inspiration" and an "unsung luminary of the moving image".^[1] In an obituary, William Basinski was quoted saying "He is brilliant. I adored his work the minute I saw it."^[6] "It was at times quite remarkable how he could uncover through his visual medium things that I never would have heard in my own music," says Sarah Davachi. Another collaborator, Gregg Kowalsky, noted that Clipson's excitement was palpable to all of his collaborators.^[6]

• "Parallel Worlds: An Interview with Paul Clipson" by Otie Wheeler for Notebook
• "Cinema for the inner eye: On the films of Paul Clipson" by Dan Browne for the San Francisco Cinematheque