"In Line Describing a Cone, the conventional primacy of the screen is completely abandoned in favour of the primacy of the projection event. According to McCall, a screen is not even mandatory. He succinctly describes the film: 'The viewer watches the film, by standing with his, or her, back towards what would normally be the screen, and looking along the beam towards the projector itself. The film begins as a coherent line of light, like a laser beam, and develops through the 30 minute duration into a complete, hollow cone of light.
The audience is expected to move up and down, in and out of the beam - this cannot be fully experienced by a stationary spectator. The shift of image as a function of shift of perspective is the operative principle of the film. External content is eliminated, and the entire film consists of the controlled line of light emanating from the projector; the act of appreciating the film-i.e., 'the process of its realisation'-is the content."
Deke Dusinberre, Studio International, Nov/Dec 1975..
sábado, 18 de abril de 2009
Anthony McCall by George Baker
Asked in 1924 to create the ballet Relâche, Picabia constructed a set comprised of 370 spotlights, placed, curiously enough, behind rather than facing or next to the stage. This reversal of theatrical convention had the effect of absorbing fascinated audience members into the set and involving them in the action. In much the same way, states the author, McCall reverses cinematic convention in Line Describing a Cone (1973), for here too spectators face the projector. The film installation begins with a piercing point of light. Over the following thirty minutes, the point slowly transforms into a wide open conical form defined by the light. By riveting spectators' attention on the projector itself and the essential component of film – the projection of light – McCall creates a critical reversal that rejects any form of illusion.
Except, perhaps, that which forces us to see as continuous movement what is actually animation comprised of still frames. Nor does the rejection of narrative conventions associated with traditional cinema negate narration in any form. Baker reminds us that the title of the work is, after all, "Line Describing a Cone." However, any narration present emanates from the "cast" participating in the film's creation as they move about the space. As the initial critical distance imposed by the installation transforms into an immersive field, participants can walk inside the cone and are incorporated into the film. The paradox becomes more pronounced when one considers that the medium (light-projector) creates an actual spatial dimension and not a mere representation: the film becomes sculpture. Indeed, McCall has called these installations, created between 1973 and 1975, "solid light films."
Baker goes on to discuss the issues associated with various minimalist artistic practices, citing the "specific object" of Donald Judd and the work of Dan Flavin, an important predecessor in the use of light as a medium. Among the key terms used to define the issues of the day, Baker refers to "continuity," which guided the phenomenological approach introduced by minimalists by focusing on process art and the relational interdependence between space and audience and the works themselves. Post-minimalist art is no longer isolated in an ahistoric temporality; it is durational, evolving within time and space. To illustrate his point, Baker draws on the radical strategies of Eva Hesse, Richard Serra, Bruce Nauman and Dan Graham and underscores the important work of Rosalind Krauss and her symbolically entitled text "Sculpture in the Expanded Field."
These considerations clearly apply to the films of McCall, and the author makes reference to the works that prepared the ground for the solid films: Slit Scan, Miniature in Black and White, Water Table and Landscape for White Squares (1972).
Baker views the solid films as "filmic sculpture," reversing the term "sculptural film" used at the time by critic Benjamin Buchloh in an essay on the films Hand Catching Lead and Hands Scraping by Richard Serra. Unlike Buchloh, who concluded that this was neither film nor sculpture, Baker prefers to borrow a concept from Deleuze – film AND sculpture – to emphasize the radical coarticulation (rather than dialectic process) present in McCall's projects.
Basing himself on these observations, Baker conducts an in-depth analysis of the three other solid films: Partial Cone, Conical Solid and Cone of Variable Volume (1974). By describing the transformation – or fluctuation – between "cinematic time" and "sculptural space," he dissects the properties of each film and finds affinities with works like the modular cubes of Sol Lewitt and the Rotoreliefs of Marcel Duchamp.
This logic is also at play, continues Baker, in McCall's "long" films, such as Long Film for Four Projectors (1974), a six-hour event. As was the case in Four Projected Movements (1975), McCall deployed new strategies to bring the spectator into the work by using architectural space as never before. The author remarks that this approach greatly changed the ambiance of the installations, which, once ethereal, had now become more "disciplinary." And because these would be McCall's last solid light films for twenty-five years, Baker speculates on the reasons why the artist abandoned the project after just two short years, examining the sociopolitical dilemmas surrounding the era's avant-garde strategies.
He concludes his essay by reflecting on Long Film for Ambient Light (1975), the final "long" film by McCall and a project even more radical than its predecessors, with both film and projector disappearing. Highly conceptual, the installation consisted of a time-schema affixed to a wall, a two-page text entitled "Notes on Duration" and an architectural space where windows covered in white paper diffused the daylight, while serving as screens at night. In the centre of the room, suspended at eye level was a light bulb. One sensed that the installation was laying open the cinematographic machinery by exposing its constituent elements. In a radical redefinition of the medium, the "film" emerged from the fusing of these diverse elements with the passage of time. After abandoning screen and image, McCall dismissed celluloid and projector in order to concentrate on two essential cinematic elements: light and time. Baker concludes by reiterating the importance of "continuity," which is represented through the becoming of a work of art within time and space.
The title chosen by Lisa Le Feuvre for her essay "The Continuous Present," refers to a fundamental notion by Gertrude Stein, which initially came to her through cinema and which she explored in her writing. A great admirer of Stein, John Cage was particularly attuned to her efforts to liberate language from syntax. Both artists were fascinated by repetition and in particular the variance that occurs in repetition. Le Feuvre discusses their impact on McCall and therefore studies his work in terms of duration as a continuous present that closely resembles Baker's notion of "continuity." The author alludes to the 1963 performance by Cage of Éric Satie's Vexations, which consists of a musical score repeated 840 times, and the film Empire (1964) by Andy Warhol, an 8-hour still shot. Because each execution is different and each image unlike the one before, the repetition involved is not repetitive after all.
Le Feuvre finds this sort of temporality at play in a number of McCall's installations, most notably in Long Film for Ambient Light, which she likens to other artistic offerings that aimed to lay bare the exhibition condition itself: the celebrated Le Vide by Yves Klein, presented at the Iris Clert Gallery in Paris in 1958, and During the exhibition the gallery will be closed (1968), by Robert Barry. In her discussion of McCall's practices, the author studies the role of the spectators, who are invited to invest themselves in the work to give it meaning.
She ends her essay by commenting on the fruitful dialogue between Line Describing a Cone and Conical Intersect, the brilliant tribute to McCall's work executed by Gordon Matta-Clark in Paris in 1975, as well as Light Conical Intersect (1996), the revival of the Matta-Clark work by Pierre Huyghe. What wonderful examples of one work inspiring another, which in turn inspires a third.
Except, perhaps, that which forces us to see as continuous movement what is actually animation comprised of still frames. Nor does the rejection of narrative conventions associated with traditional cinema negate narration in any form. Baker reminds us that the title of the work is, after all, "Line Describing a Cone." However, any narration present emanates from the "cast" participating in the film's creation as they move about the space. As the initial critical distance imposed by the installation transforms into an immersive field, participants can walk inside the cone and are incorporated into the film. The paradox becomes more pronounced when one considers that the medium (light-projector) creates an actual spatial dimension and not a mere representation: the film becomes sculpture. Indeed, McCall has called these installations, created between 1973 and 1975, "solid light films."
Baker goes on to discuss the issues associated with various minimalist artistic practices, citing the "specific object" of Donald Judd and the work of Dan Flavin, an important predecessor in the use of light as a medium. Among the key terms used to define the issues of the day, Baker refers to "continuity," which guided the phenomenological approach introduced by minimalists by focusing on process art and the relational interdependence between space and audience and the works themselves. Post-minimalist art is no longer isolated in an ahistoric temporality; it is durational, evolving within time and space. To illustrate his point, Baker draws on the radical strategies of Eva Hesse, Richard Serra, Bruce Nauman and Dan Graham and underscores the important work of Rosalind Krauss and her symbolically entitled text "Sculpture in the Expanded Field."
These considerations clearly apply to the films of McCall, and the author makes reference to the works that prepared the ground for the solid films: Slit Scan, Miniature in Black and White, Water Table and Landscape for White Squares (1972).
Baker views the solid films as "filmic sculpture," reversing the term "sculptural film" used at the time by critic Benjamin Buchloh in an essay on the films Hand Catching Lead and Hands Scraping by Richard Serra. Unlike Buchloh, who concluded that this was neither film nor sculpture, Baker prefers to borrow a concept from Deleuze – film AND sculpture – to emphasize the radical coarticulation (rather than dialectic process) present in McCall's projects.
Basing himself on these observations, Baker conducts an in-depth analysis of the three other solid films: Partial Cone, Conical Solid and Cone of Variable Volume (1974). By describing the transformation – or fluctuation – between "cinematic time" and "sculptural space," he dissects the properties of each film and finds affinities with works like the modular cubes of Sol Lewitt and the Rotoreliefs of Marcel Duchamp.
This logic is also at play, continues Baker, in McCall's "long" films, such as Long Film for Four Projectors (1974), a six-hour event. As was the case in Four Projected Movements (1975), McCall deployed new strategies to bring the spectator into the work by using architectural space as never before. The author remarks that this approach greatly changed the ambiance of the installations, which, once ethereal, had now become more "disciplinary." And because these would be McCall's last solid light films for twenty-five years, Baker speculates on the reasons why the artist abandoned the project after just two short years, examining the sociopolitical dilemmas surrounding the era's avant-garde strategies.
He concludes his essay by reflecting on Long Film for Ambient Light (1975), the final "long" film by McCall and a project even more radical than its predecessors, with both film and projector disappearing. Highly conceptual, the installation consisted of a time-schema affixed to a wall, a two-page text entitled "Notes on Duration" and an architectural space where windows covered in white paper diffused the daylight, while serving as screens at night. In the centre of the room, suspended at eye level was a light bulb. One sensed that the installation was laying open the cinematographic machinery by exposing its constituent elements. In a radical redefinition of the medium, the "film" emerged from the fusing of these diverse elements with the passage of time. After abandoning screen and image, McCall dismissed celluloid and projector in order to concentrate on two essential cinematic elements: light and time. Baker concludes by reiterating the importance of "continuity," which is represented through the becoming of a work of art within time and space.
The title chosen by Lisa Le Feuvre for her essay "The Continuous Present," refers to a fundamental notion by Gertrude Stein, which initially came to her through cinema and which she explored in her writing. A great admirer of Stein, John Cage was particularly attuned to her efforts to liberate language from syntax. Both artists were fascinated by repetition and in particular the variance that occurs in repetition. Le Feuvre discusses their impact on McCall and therefore studies his work in terms of duration as a continuous present that closely resembles Baker's notion of "continuity." The author alludes to the 1963 performance by Cage of Éric Satie's Vexations, which consists of a musical score repeated 840 times, and the film Empire (1964) by Andy Warhol, an 8-hour still shot. Because each execution is different and each image unlike the one before, the repetition involved is not repetitive after all.
Le Feuvre finds this sort of temporality at play in a number of McCall's installations, most notably in Long Film for Ambient Light, which she likens to other artistic offerings that aimed to lay bare the exhibition condition itself: the celebrated Le Vide by Yves Klein, presented at the Iris Clert Gallery in Paris in 1958, and During the exhibition the gallery will be closed (1968), by Robert Barry. In her discussion of McCall's practices, the author studies the role of the spectators, who are invited to invest themselves in the work to give it meaning.
She ends her essay by commenting on the fruitful dialogue between Line Describing a Cone and Conical Intersect, the brilliant tribute to McCall's work executed by Gordon Matta-Clark in Paris in 1975, as well as Light Conical Intersect (1996), the revival of the Matta-Clark work by Pierre Huyghe. What wonderful examples of one work inspiring another, which in turn inspires a third.
domingo, 28 de octubre de 2007
SATANTANGO
The story line in Satantango-- brilliant, diabolical, sarcastic--gradually unravels the dreams, machinations, and betrayals of a failed farm collective over a few rainy fall days, two of them rendered more than once, from the perspectives of different characters. But the plot operates almost independently of the moral and experiential weight given each shot: Tarr's camera obliges us to share so much time as well as space with the grubby characters that we can't help but become deeply implicated in their lives and maneuverings. Tarr has noted that the form of his film, like that of the novel, is inspired by the tango--six steps forward, six back--an idea reflected in the overlapping Faulknerian time structure, the film's 12 sections, and many of its remarkably choreographed camera movements and long takes. Satantango weaves the collective interactions of Almanac of Fall and the pungent evocations of solitude of Damnation into the same narrative fabric; though the film focuses on a community, at least three of the most remarkable sequences follow the movements of an isolated individual. The most celebrated and terrifying of these, involving a little girl and a cat, is rendered so convincingly that many viewers have wrongly assumed its violence to be real rather than fabricated. (For the record, the cat used in the sequence is now Tarr's pet.) Even more extraordinary, to my taste, is the film's mesmerizing third section, which charts for a full hour the mainly solitary movements of an old doctor lost in an alcoholic haze. It's a tribute to Tarr's singularity of purpose that at no point does this sequence--or anything else in his 415-minute film--seem tedious or self-indulgent; the breadth of his canvas suits the magnitude of what he has to say.
By Jonathan Rosenbaum
Publicar comentarios de las peliculas del ciclo aqui:
By Jonathan Rosenbaum
Publicar comentarios de las peliculas del ciclo aqui:
2001
The first spoken word is almost a half hour into the film, and there's less than 40 minutes of dialogue in the entire film. Much of the film is in dead silence (accurately depicting the absence of sound in space), or with the sound of human breathing within a spacesuit. Kubrick's sci-fi experiment intended to present its story almost purely with visual imagery and auditory signals with very little communicative human dialogue (similar to what was attempted in the surreal, fragmented, non-narrative imagery of the Qatsi trilogy - from 1983-2002, from Godfrey Reggio). All scenes in the film have either dialogue or music (or silence), but never both together.
about 2001: A Space Odyssey.
about 2001: A Space Odyssey.
miércoles, 24 de octubre de 2007
CINEMA IS DEAD
On the 30th of June 1952 the film Hurlements en faveur de Sade by Guy Debord premiered in Ciné-Club d'Avant-Gardes at the Musée de l'Homme in Paris. The lights in the cinema were switched off and the film began. The screen went white from the light of the projectors and an expressionless voice on the soundtrack announced: "The film by Guy-Ernest Debord, Howlings in favour of Sade …" Another voice continued dispassionately, "Howlings in favour of Sade is dedicated to Gil J. Wolman". A third voice recited "Article 115. When a person shall have ceased to appear at his place of abode or home address for four years, and about whom there has been no news whatsoever, the interested parties shall be able to petition the lower courts in order that his or her absence be declared". The three voices continued reading different text fragments out loud, one after the other, for a couple of minutes. The screen remained white; there were still no pictures. After a couple of minutes with a white screen, a voice recited: "Just as the film was about to start, Guy-Ernest Debord would climb on stage to say a few words by way of introduction. He'd say simply: 'There's no film. Cinema is dead. There can't be film anymore. If you want, let's have a discussion". Following this the screen went black, and there was no sound for a couple of minutes. Already at this point the audience was getting restless - several had protested loudly, others had left, and only a few minutes passed before the director of the film club, Jean Gauliez, stopped Hurlements en faveur de Sade. Indeed, this film by Guy Debord, later leader of the Situationists, was also a provocation and an anti-film more than a film. There were no pictures in the film - the screen was either white or black. The soundtrack consisted of nothing but voices expressionlessly reciting the fragmentary sentences taken from bodies of laws, novelettes, modernistic literature and newspaper notices. There was neither music nor real sound in the film; only voices cut through the silence. The discontinuous 'dialogue' of the voices accompanied the white screen, and when the screen was black there was no sound in the film. The film lasted eighty minutes; the soundtrack lasted twenty. So the film consisted of one hour of blackness and total silence, its final twenty-four minutes taking place in black silence. However, the viewers were not interested in spending this amount of time on the premiere, which ended in chaos and scandal, the film being stopped after less than ten minutes.
Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen
P.O.V. No.16 - FILM & POLITICS
Anti-film: Hurlements en faveur de Sade
http://pov.imv.au.dk/Issue_16/section_1/artc5A.html
Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen
P.O.V. No.16 - FILM & POLITICS
Anti-film: Hurlements en faveur de Sade
http://pov.imv.au.dk/Issue_16/section_1/artc5A.html
domingo, 21 de octubre de 2007
Cinema can be anything
I don't believe in the concept that you have to sit in the cinema for two hours and watch a story that is compressed in this period of time. Cinema can be anything. My films are not purposely done for the cinema anymore. You can watch them there, or in the streets, or... on a plane!. You can watch it at home, you can make love with your girlfriend for two hours, and when you come back, the film is still running. Or you could go the farm, plough the land, and when you come home, the film is still on.
So there are different concepts of viewing now. My films are just like paintings that are just there. Nothing changes. You can watch it for eight hours, and you can have a more fulfilling experience. Or you can leave the house, go to work, and when you come home, it is still there.
Lav Diaz, interviewed by Tilman Baumgartel
http://www.greencine.com/central/lavdiaz
So there are different concepts of viewing now. My films are just like paintings that are just there. Nothing changes. You can watch it for eight hours, and you can have a more fulfilling experience. Or you can leave the house, go to work, and when you come home, it is still there.
Lav Diaz, interviewed by Tilman Baumgartel
http://www.greencine.com/central/lavdiaz
domingo, 30 de septiembre de 2007
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