Michael Betancourt

Michael Betancourt (born 1971) is a critical theorist, art and film historian, and animator. His principal published works focus on the technologies of visual music, new media art and theory, and formalist study of motion pictures.

Betancourt's father is archaeologist Philip P. Betancourt, and his brother is author John Gregory Betancourt. He spent his summers in Crete, Greece, working as a photographer on his father's excavation at Pseira. His first film exhibition was Archaeomodern, shown in the Ann Arbor Festival of Experimental Film in 1993. In 1995, his film a self-referential film in 30 sentences won a Director's Citation award at the Black Maria Film Festival.

Early life and education

Betancourt was born in New Jersey in 1971. He attended Temple University in Philadelphia, PA to study motion pictures, and then received an MA in Film Studies at the University of Miami in Miami, FL studying under film historian William Rothman. He also received his Ph.D. from the University of Miami in Interdisciplinary Studies, focusing on Art History, Communications/Film Studies and History.

In addition to scholarly work, he has written popular articles and reviews on art, art theory and culture for the Miami Art Exchange and Art Scene magazines.

Visual Music

Betancourt has discovered that the inventor Mary Hallock-Greenewalt produced the earliest hand-painted films known to still exist.“Mary Hallock–Greenewalt’s Abstract Films,” Millennium Film Journal, no....
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