Betsy Kopmar’s All the Possible Braidings (music: Jami Sieber). © Betsy Kopmar.

Here's Miller's list of favorite films (when he sent me this, he stressed that, and I mostly agree with him, that this list would likely change each time he/we look at the VMM selection):

Daydream Mechanics V Sketch 3 (Jean Detheux)
Rupture (Jean Detheux)
Liaisons (Jean Detheux)
add.value 5 more (Gerhard Daurer)
Navigating the Pearl System (Fran Hartnett)
Afterlife (John Banks, images; Fritz Heede, music)
SEEK ASSISTANCE (Vishal Shah, images; Adam Stansbie, music)
Retz/distrans (Pierce Warnecke)
1/3 (one over three) vol.1 (Chiaki Watanabe, images; Tristan Perich and Sylvia Mincewicz, music)
Erev Shel shoshanim (Nathaniel Resnikoff)
Cortex (Mike Almond, images; Mathew Adkins, music)
INFINITE SONG (Serban Nichifor)
¿Te Acuerdas Hijo? (Do You Remember Son?) Rajmil Fischman
IV.6 (Mike Winkelmann)
Sports and Diversions (Bum Lee, images; Erik Satie, music)
All the Possible Braidings (Betsy Kopmar, images; Jami Sieber, music)
Lajka's Memory (Eva M. Toth, images; Gyorgy Kurtag Sr. and Gyorgy Kurtag Jr., music)
Time Streams (2003) (Stephanie Maxwell, images; Allan Schindler, music)

Lots more to say about this Visual Music Marathon and about visual music, I talked earlier about it being akin to the "Salon des Refusés," but a friend made a remark that feels more accurate -- the Marathon is a lot closer in fact to the historical 1913 Armory Show of New York (xroads.virginia.edu/~museum/armory/armoryshow.html) than it does to the "Salon des Refusés." I see it as equally historical, there is a "before" and an "after" VMM, the presence and perception of the importance of visual music will never be the same.

As a footnote, the festival was dedicated to Miller's father, who died a few short weeks ago. Here's what Dennis said to me about his father: Marvin Miller was 82 and was a psychiatrist and art glass jewelry maker. He was exceedingly fond of highly colored abstract images and was, of course, a great supporter of my work (my folks had many of my prints in their home). We lived most of our family life in New Orleans, though my folks had been residing in Bellingham WA for the last few years.

There's no doubt in my mind that Marvin Miller would have felt right at home during the Visual Music Marathon, what with all those highly colored (moving) images dancing in front of our eyes (and a few inches behind them as well) for 12 straight hours!

Born in Belgium, Jean Detheux received his academic training at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts de Liège. Immigrating to Canada in 1971, he taught at various art schools in Canada and the U.S. He has exhibited his paintings and drawings in solo and in group shows, in Europe and the Americas, where his work can be found in many private and public collections. He has also given numerous talks about the phenomenology of vision and the process of creation (member of the Husserl Circle in 1981). He has written, in English and French, many articles on art and animation, reviews of festivals, symposiums, books and software, several of those having been published by Animation World Network.

After nearly four decades of work with natural media, sudden serious allergies from his use of painting materials forced him to give up "real" painting for digital technology (in 1997). This brought him almost "naturally" to animated film ("time-based art"). He has since made numerous films, including two with composer Jean Derome, produced in 2005 by the National Film Board of Canada.