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  Ames and Anamorphosis: THE MAN WHO MADE DISTORTED ROOMS

  Roy R. Behrens

  Ames was primarily known for having devised about twenty-five laboratory set-ups, collectively referred to as the Ames Demonstrations in Perception.

  This first part focuses on his life, the demonstrations, and the circumstances that prompted him to construct them. Perhaps the most familiar of these are the Ames Distorted Room, the Rotating Trapezoid Window, and the Chair Demonstration.

  Featured prominently in this segment is his connection with British-American social scientist Gregory Bateson, whom he met in 1947. The remaining two segments (in process of being completed) deal with components that influenced Ames, and with his influence on the subsequent research of others.

  This series is a consequence of long-term research by Roy R. Behrens, UNI emeritus professor, who replicated several of the Ames Demonstrations at UNI in the early 1970s, and began to write about Ames’ life. In 1994, he was invited to lecture on the subject at Dartmouth College, where Ames’ work had been conducted. Written, produced and narrated by Roy R. Behrens (©2022).

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  Bauhaus, Gestalt Theory, and Problem-Solving: THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX

  Roy R. Behrens

  This video talk is about creative problem-solving in relation to the research of German psychologist Karl Duncker (1903-1940), who is commonly credited with originating the term "functional fixedness." It talks about Duncker's difficult life (subject to depression, he died by suicide at age 37) in the context of his research of problem-solving, his contributions to Gestalt psychology, and various speculations about his indirect influence on teaching strategies at the Dessau Bauhaus, the famous school of art and design. Also discussed are the conceptual connections between his ideas and the practices of Friedrich Froebel (who originated kindergarten), traditional Japanese architecture, and American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Written, produced and narrated by Roy R. Behrens (©2022).

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  COOK: The Man Who Taught Gertrude Stein to Drive

  Roy R. Behrens

  This is a sixty-minute voice-over film biography of the life of William Edwards Cook (1881-1959), an American expatriate artist, who grew up in Iowa, but spent his adult life in Europe, living in Paris, Rome, and Majorca. More specifically, it is a detailed account of the nearly life-long friendship of Cook with the American writer Gertrude Stein. It is based on her frequent adulation of him in her writings, as well as on the contents of 250 pages of their unpublished correspondence. Cook was never a well-known artist, but he did acquire some renown for two other reasons: In 1907, he was the first American artist to be allowed to paint a portrait of Pope Pius X. Later, in 1926, he used his inheritance to commission the then-unknown Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier to design an early Modernist home (the "first true cubist house") in Boulogne-sur-Seine, which is still intact, and widely known as Maison Cook or Villa Cook.

  The friendship of Gertrude Stein and William Edwards Cook (including the roles of their partners, Alice B. Toklas and Jeanne Moallic Cook) was first documented in COOK BOOK: Gertrude Stein, William Cook and Le Corbusier (Bobolink Books, 2005). This video talk corrects, updates, and adds to the information in that book.

  This film project (as well as the earlier book) was made possible by the earlier work of such Stein scholars as Ulla Dydo, Bruce Kellner, and Rosalind Moad, as well as the Stein / Cook correspondence in the collection of the Beinecke Library at Yale University.

  In 2005, when the book was released, Ulla Dydo (the pre-eminent expert on Stein, and author of The Language that Rises) praised it in the following way: "This book jumps out at my eyes, my ears. It comes from everywhere, never drags those even blocks of print that dull the mind. Look at it, read it, let it tease you: It's researched with all the care that keeps its sense of humor and its visual and voice delights. Travel with it, leave home, go and explore the many ways for a book to be a house for living."

  The distinguished critic Guy Davenport wrote: "This is as good as topnotch Behrens gets!"

  This film is not without humor, and at times it shares surprises. It may prove of particular value to viewers who are interested in American literature, Modernism, art, expatriates, Paris, Majorca, the American Midwest, Iowa, art history, the training of artists, Cubism, Picasso, Le Corbusier, LGBT, and gender identity issues. Written, produced and narrated by Roy R. Behrens ©2022.

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  Dazzle Camouflage Interview: What is it and how did it work?

  Roy R. Behrens

  This is a series of excerpts from a fast-paced interview with American writer, designer, and camouflage historian Roy R. Behrens. Filmed in London in 2017 in connection with the centenary of World War I, it addresses a series of questions about WWI camouflage, and particularly "high difference" ship camouflage, commonly known as “dazzle." For more information on Behrens’ research, see .

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  DREAMS OF FIELDS: Salvador Dali’s Encounter with Corn

  Roy R. Behrens

  Surrealism (founded by the French poet André Breton) came out of a merger of Dada with psychoanalysis. This video tells the story of an actual meeting between Sigmund Freud and the Spanish Surrealist artist Salvador Dali. It also provides an amusing account of a little-known visiting lecture by Dali in 1952 to the University of Northern Iowa, known then as Iowa State Teachers College, in Cedar Falls. It is based on contemporaneous news accounts and first-hand eyewitness reports. Written, produced and narrated by Roy R. Behrens (©2022).

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  Solving Problems in Design

  Roy R. Behrens

  In May 2022, a nationwide invitational exhibition titled Evolving Graphic Design was curated by graphic design professor Yeohyun Ahn at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. The exhibition ended in late June with a hybrid symposium (both online and in-person), featuring short presentations by various participants. UNI emeritus professor Roy R. Behrens exhibited a series of insect-themed montages (co-created with David Versluis in 2012-2013), and a selection of components from his extensive archive of camouflage artifacts. This video, which premiered at the symposium, is his retrospective look on using classroom problems while teaching courses in graphic design for more than 45 years. Written and produced by Roy R. Behrens (©2022).