Directing
Began in June of 1966 and was completed one year later. The first footage (in B&W) was shot at Foothill Junior College in Los Altos Hills as a course project. After graduation (and during!), I continued shooting until leaving for my three-month trek through the High Sierras. My mountain footage is a complete other trip, a microcosm of which is incorporated into PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE. I came to Philadelphia in Fall of 1966, continued school at Drexel Institute and Temple University, completed my film, and dropped out of school by Spring of 1968. The campuses which appear in the film are: Foothill, Stanford, Drexel Institute, University of Pennsylvania, and Purdue University in Indiana. Also appearing in the film are: The Sierras, my California apartment, Pine Hill state park in Indiana, several unnamed public disasters, and the Philadelphia Art Museum.
A sequel of his previous 1967 homonymous experiment, Doppler Effect II moves one step forward in the mission of organising seemingly random stock footage along a rhythmical axis. By using found footage of diverse origin - political announcements, animal life, porn - and intertwining it with images recorded by Agnew himself-- cityscapes, abstract light essays-- the film abandons any attempt of evoking meaning of any sort and focuses on a strictly formal exercise centred on time intervals and micro-relations between small sets of images. The soundtrack, recorded by Duane Hitchings (known for his collaborations with Miles Davis and Hendrix, but also for his Flashdance OST) on a Moog synth, is an engaging exercise in abstract sonic dynamics and an essential part of the Doppler experiment in that it not only provides different aural settings for the diverse footage presented throughout the film, but also aptly sets the pace for the fast succession of synched images.
