Mowafaghian Cinema, Goldcorp Centre for the Arts
Monday November 9, 2026
6:30pm (doors 6:00pm)
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.
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.
