Nice post from Dan Hill over at City of Sound about finding a whole host of avant-garde films on YouTube, particularly Len Lye’s film, Free Radicals (see below). Dan also mentions Malcolm Le Grice who I remember being my head of school when I was at college.
Lye has been a massive influence on video and media art and certainly and a great deal of interactive/generative art too. Interesting also to watch this documentary on Raster-Noton with Olof Bender talking about trying to find a modern aesthetic, yet borrowing from 50 years ago in terms of the similar approach. The same is true of most VJs too - they/we all owe a lot to Lye.