Light Reading

Films which involve a high level of motion and no editing and films which involve a low level of motion and no editing part 1 'Confessions' - William Raban (1997) 1 min <-> (Back and Forth) - Michael Snow (1968-69) 52 mins part 2 Reversal/Rotation (from the Functional Action series) - Tony Sinden (1975)10 mins 'Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet' - Steven Dwoskin (1971) 30 min

What this selection has in common is the constraint of a continuous take, the artist choosing continuity of time to reveal something other than the simple documentation of time, exploring filmic possibilities outside the conventions of industrial cinema & television. And there are other constraints, fixed cameras, cameras out of the control of the artist. William Raban makes the camera do a bunjee jump - the duration of the film is dictated by the action, the camera movement is controlled by the laws of physics. Michael Snow creates a sculptural event through camera placement & mechanical process whereas the sculptural element in Tony Sinden's emphasises the plane, his camera is employed to survey a surface (a bowling green, very flat) using a figure 8 movement, this superimposed upon itself, choreographed. Dwoskin's fixed high speed camera choreographs an everyday scene, a man walking. A secondary common emphasis in this work is the viewing situation. No obvious solution is given to the viewer, the viewer is asked to participate in the work - whether through the physicality of viewing Snow or Raban on a large screen or the more contemplative aesthetic of Dwoskin & Sinden. It could be argued that a sense of tragedy/comedy or beauty in Dwoskin's film is imposed by the viewer on an otherwise neutral documentation (although that argument could easily be opposed through Gavin Bryars' soundtrack which leads the viewer into exactly that territory). Sinden's seductively green field of vision has a aesthetic consideration, but again, nothing much appears to happen in conventional filmic terms - the viewer implicitly constructs their own experience of the film. Impossibility - something that the artist couldn't or wouldn't do - Raban's 'Confessions' derives from the artist's understandable reluctance to dive off a high tower, human perception of slowed time is an impossibility as is the act of walking for Dwoskin who has suffered from severe restriction on physical movement since childhood. Snow & Sinden could not physically perform the actions they make the camera do - in Snow's work the danger of repetitive strain injury or worse, in Sinden's film the motion is similarly impossible for a human unless weirdly levitated, this quality emphasised by the superimposition. Soundtracks - as a composer I am expected to mention the soundtracks. Snow uses location sound, the camera & back & forth mechanism audible in the space. Sinden uses location sound although manipulated in a way analogous to the filmic treatment. A tiny fragment of this treatment (or something very similar) reappears within Raban's 'Confessions' but the soundtrack here is music, initially a direct contrast to the violent physicality of the screen image but as the motions of the camera become more extreme, almost illustrative. Gavin Bryars' 'Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet' is a notable work in its own right - a unique balance of the experimental vocabulary of tape loop repetition, human repetition, process & imperfection in a context of finely-judged instrumental scoring. (Bryars has noted that the film is a visual track to the music, since the music was written first). - David Cunningham