Ed Emshwiller, 65; Artist, CalArts Dean

Ed Emshwiller, an abstract Expressionist and video artist who was dean of the California Institute of the Arts’ School of Film and Video, died Friday. He was 65.

Emshwiller, who signed his paintings and award-winning science fiction illustrations “EMSH,” died of cancer at the Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital in Valencia.

“Ed Emshwiller was a wonderful man and an exceptional artist,” college President Steven D. Lavine said. “As much as any one person, he embodied the spirit of CalArts. This is a tremendous loss for us all.”

The versatile artist and administrator studied art at the University of Michigan, the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and at the Art Students League. He became dean of the CalArts film school in 1979 and served as provost from 1981 to 1986.

Praising Emshwiller’s “extraordinary gifts” as an artist, former CalArts President Robert J. Fitzpatrick once commented: “To his own surprise and our great benefit, he has shown a special talent for administration and leadership. . . . He is the only person I know who could successfully combine triple careers of artist, dean and provost.”

Always trying to extend the limits of film and video, Emshwiller at the time of his death was working with composer Morton Subotnick in what he called “interactive and three-dimensional performance with sound/image generation and various controlling devices.”

The new work was to create changeable images in the same way that the two men had created constantly changing sound in the electronic video opera called “Hungers,” which they created for the 1987 Los Angeles Arts Festival. “Hungers” employed live performance and interactive devices that changed the sound of the music according to the environment, so that no two performances were ever the same.

To Emshwiller, the innovative technique was merely a way “to get film out of its can.”

A pilot for the last three years, Emshwiller was also planning a video project that involved mixing airplane-view images of the Mojave Desert with computer graphics and a voice-over.

Emshwiller’s experimental films, including “Relativity,” “Totem,” “Three Dancers” and “Thanatopsis,” have been screened at film festivals in New York, London, Berlin, Edinburgh and Cannes.

His multimedia productions were exhibited at Lincoln Center, the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum in New York, as well as at the Los Angeles Film Festival.

Emshwiller won grants for his work from the NEA, the Rockefeller, Ford and Guggenheim foundations and the Corp. for Public Broadcasting.

He served on boards of the American Film Institute, the Filmmakers Cooperative, the Assn. of Independent Video and Filmmakers and the Independent Television Service.

Survivors include his wife, Carol, three children, Eve, Susan and Peter, and a brother, Maclellan.

A memorial service is scheduled for 7 p.m. Sunday in the Graduation Courtyard of the CalArts campus in Valencia.