WIKIPEDIA: Tony Conrad (born Anthony S. Conrad in 1940 in Concord, New Hampshire) is an American avant-garde video artist, experimental filmmaker, musician/composer, sound artist, teacher and writer. His father was Arthur Conrad, who worked with Everett Warner during World War II in designing dazzle camouflage for the US Navy. Conrad’s most famous film, The Flicker (1966), is considered a key early work of the structural film movement. The film consists of only completely black and completely white images, which, as the title suggests, produces a flicker when projected. When the film was first screened several viewers in the audience became physically ill. (Rapid flashes produce epileptic attacks in a small percentage of population.) Conrad is responsible for the name of The Velvet Underground, although he was not a member. Conrad became friendly with John Cale when the pair performed with Angus MacLise, La Monte Young, and Marian Zazeela as the Theater of Eternal Music, AKA The Dream Syndicate.
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