Luke Fowler: Electro-Pythagoras (a portrait of Martin Bartlett)
Screening and Performance
Monday, November 9, 2026 | 6:30 PM (doors 6:00 PM)
Djavad Mowafaghian Cinema
SFU School for the Contemporary Arts
149 W. Hastings St., Vancouver
Join us as Glasgow-based filmmaker Luke Fowler screens and discusses his 2017 cinematic collage Electro-Pythagoras (A Portrait of Martin Bartlett). In this film, Fowler pays tribute to the work and life of the late composer and SFU professor Martin Bartlett (1939-1993), whose groundbreaking musical practice made tremendous impacts in the fields of computer-performer interactivity, experimental tunings, and analogue- and computer-driven synthesizer creation.
Preceding the screening, Vancouver Gamelan ensemble Kembang Telang will perform, highlighting the enduring impact of Bartlett's gamelan research within both SFU’s School for the Contemporary Arts and the wider community.
Bartlett was a pivotal figure in Vancouver’s artistic and cultural landscape; his influence extended across experimental music, artist-run culture, and arts education. He was one of the first openly gay composers of his generation. As a co-founder of the artist-run centre the Western Front, he helped establish the collaborative, interdisciplinary ethos that has shaped Vancouver’s contemporary art scene. Bartlett was instrumental in embedding electronic and electroacoustic music within SFU’s curriculum, including co-founding the Electronic Music Studio, which became an important site for experimentation with emerging technologies and new compositional forms. His teaching emphasized open-ended, collaborative, community- and process-based practices, which helped to cultivate a distinctly interdisciplinary ethos within the School. Equally significant was his role in expanding the cultural and conceptual scope of the program. By introducing Javanese gamelan to SFU and founding what became the Vancouver Community Gamelan, Bartlett brought non-Western musical traditions directly into the academic environment, encouraging a model of learning grounded in embodied practice, cross-cultural exchange, and community participation.
Presented by the School for the Contemporary Arts in partnership with the Marianne and Edward Gibson Art Museum, alongside the Gibson’s solo exhibition Martin Bartlett: Begin Anywhere, on view from October 3, 2026 to February 14, 2027 at the Gibson on SFU's Burnaby campus.
This screening and performance are made possible with support from the SFU School for the Contemporary Arts Community Engagement Program and Friends of the Gibson.
Biographies
Martin Bartlett (1939–1993) was a musician, composer, performer, writer, and educator who lived in Vancouver, Canada. He was the co-founder of Western Front, the Electronic Music Studio at Simon Fraser University, and the founder of the Vancouver Community Gamelan. A pioneer of electroacoustic music, Bartlett’s compositions frequently featured aleatoric elements and his performances were often collaborative in nature. Bartlett joined the faculty at Simon Fraser University's then-titled Centre for the Arts (now School for the Contemporary Arts) in 1983. At SFU, he played a key role in shaping the early development of experimental and interdisciplinary arts education, helping to establish approaches that integrated composition, performance, technology, and cross-cultural practice. Bartlett was instrumental in embedding electronic and electroacoustic music within SFU’s curriculum. His teaching emphasized open-ended, collaborative, community- and process-based practices, reflecting influences from figures such as John Cage and Pauline Oliveros, and helping to cultivate a distinctly interdisciplinary ethos within the School. Equally significant was his role in expanding the cultural and conceptual scope of the program. Bartlett brought non-Western musical traditions directly into the academic environment, encouraging a model of learning grounded in embodied practice, cross-cultural exchange, and community participation.
Luke Fowler lives and works in Glasgow. Fowler questions the style and political implications of conventional modes of documentary through a varied practice which encompasses film, sound, installation and photography. He is concerned with finding new ways to meaningfully engage with marginal cultural figures as well as spaces and archive materials through the medium of 16mm film. His moving image works have charted an alternative history of Britain as well as considering significant international musicians and artists – revisiting the work of Margaret Tait, R. D. Laing, Patrick Cowley, and Brunhild Ferrari, amongst others. He was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2012 and received the inaugural Derek Jarman Award in 2008. In 2014, MACK published Fowler’s first monograph of his Photo Archive. Fowler’s Mum’s Cards was awarded the 2019 Scottish Short Film Award at Glasgow Short Film Festival and the prize for Best Short at Punto de Vista International Documentary Film Festival of Navarre, Spain. And his Being in a Place: A Portrait of Margaret Tait was awarded the La Scam International Award 2023 at Cinéma du Réel.
Based in Vancouver, Gamelan Kembang Telang performs traditional and contemporary Balinese gamelan music. The group’s small ensemble format showcases some of the most compact and innovative forms of gamelan; music that reveals beautiful and complex patterns that fit together like an intricate musical jigsaw puzzle. Contemporary works by Ryan Swaryandana and I Made Subandi showcase bold new directions in technique and style. The ensemble's name refers to the blossoming of the blue Telang flower, a vibrant and medicinal plant which adorned the gamelan studio of I Made Subandi, the group’s late mentor.
About the School for the Contemporary Arts Community Engagement Program
The SCA Community Engagement Program supports community and cultural programming and partnerships with a focus on initiatives that include local collaborations, socially engaged practices, accessible education, and public dialogue within the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University.
The program is guided by three core aims: 1) to contribute to the social, cultural and artistic vitality of our community; 2) to enhance access and reduce structural barriers to engaging with contemporary arts; and 3) to support greater exchange and porosity between the SCA and our surrounding artistic and cultural communities.