Page 20 - Studio International - October 1972

Sharits. The principle of flicker is indigenous viewer. Also, by way of fades to black or abrupt only becomes, aware through an occasional
to the operations of camera and projector. flashes to white, the screen itself seems to be and accidental scratch which appears on the
One hears the terms 'flick' or 'flicker' in obliterated. screen, made as the film passes through the
reference to film, indicating a consciousness of In contrast, Kubelka's Arnulf Rainer becomes projector gate. But here Sharits, purposely uses
this phenomenon, for film is actually composed an intense assault on the visual as well as the the scratch and a system of scratches which eat
of separate still frames projected at sixteen or aural level, for its track consists of white sound into the otherwise representational images
twenty-four frames per second. But ordinarily which one hears as static. In some instances, below, and create their own illusions out of the
one sees a constant image on the screen without the film's white light seems to ricochet off the film emulsion itself.
interruption; one does not notice the separate screen, and in others, as in Ray Gun Virus, the S:TREAM:S:S:ECTION:S-EC-TION:
frames because of the operations of the camera screen appears to contract and to expand its S:S:ECTIONED also employs loop printing
and projector coupled with the persistence of size. However, in The Flicker the screen size of images, as do, for example, George Landow's
vision. As I have said previously, appears for the viewer to remain more constant. A Film in Which There Appear Edge Lettering,
'Taking its cue from the shutter and the Conrad's film moves slowly and gradually into a Sprocket Holes, Dirt Particles, etc. (I966), and
intermittent movement of camera and projector succession of extremely violent and quick Joyce Wieland's 1933 and Hand Tinting (1968).
acting upon the strip of separate frames, the pulsations which many viewers find impossible This technique made a prominent appearance
flicker film in its fashion emphasizes the nature to focus upon for very long because of the as early as 1924 in a classic of the French
of the separate frames, the rapid movement of physiological discomfort. In both films, avant garde, Léger's Ballet Mécanique, where
the frames, and through analogy and by way through their respective achromatic a brief shot of a woman climbing stairs is seen
of hyperbole, the flicker effect of the shutter. structuring, the viewer perceives colours more than a dozen times. In a primary sense,
The flicker film can be described through afterimages. And in each, the flat the loop-printed image makes one aware of
phenomenologically as the short and very rapid screen is at times bombarded with illusions of film's engaging, illusionary qualities through
succession of recurrent images which flutter or amorphous and even representational patterns. the process of breaking those illusions and
fluctuate in various structures throughout the In print, both Sharits and Conrad refer calling attention to the film qua film. The very
work.'14 respectively to the creation of 'drama' and repetitions of the same shots or scenes and
The flicker film should not be confused with 'dramatic results'through their flicker works by their nondirec:tionality draw one to perceive
works which employ rapid cutting, such as putting aside traditional illusionism and more closely the image and its frame as it is
Robert Breer's Recreation (1956) and Blazes representation, and relying on the film set off in time and space. And, in Bardo Follies
(1961) or rapid cutting and movement as in projected in its two-dimensionality. Their (1967), Landow carries the illusion-breaking
Stan Brakhage's Dog Star Man (1961-64). works, along with Kubelka's, indicate these process one step further: the abstractions
The flicker film may consist purely of recurrent dramatic possibilities. Deprived of which appear and replace his original
structures of solid black and white frames as in representational imagery which would refer three-dimensional loop image are actually the
Kubelka's Arnulf Rainer or Conrad's The him to another time or place, the viewer must loop images themselves which have been
Flicker (1966), or of structures of solid deal with the immediate drama of his own treated and transformed through burning.
chromatic frames as in Sharits's Ray Gun Virus interaction with the chromatic and achromatic Andy Warhol can be cited as an immediate
(1966), or of chromatic structures with scores and systems of frames in Arnulf historical predecessor for the absolutely
referential imagery, as in Sharits's other flicker Rainer, The Flicker, and Ray Gun Virus. Each fixed camera. His early works, such as Sleep
films, such as T, O, U, C, H, I, N, G or becomes a highly visual drama of film itself as (I963-64), Ear, and Empire (1964), whose
N:O:T:H:I:N:G (1963). While Kubelka's, the viewer's responses are challenged and his camera remains rigidly focused on an object or
made in Vienna, preceded the others by some entire participation on both an intellectual and phenomenon, are examples of this. Jonas
years, they were not shown here until the physiological level are demanded. By way of Mekas once referred to these as Warhol's
mid-sixties, and neither Conrad nor Sharits their structuring, these seemingly simple re-creation of early film history. Indeed, in its
had known of them or had seen them, nor did materials prove to be extremely complex. Other beginnings the works were all single-camera-
they know of each other's work when they both flicker works such as N:0:T:H:I:N:G and position films, recording a gag, a scandalous
completed films in I966. T,O, U,C,H,I,N,G, while incorporating the kiss, or a short melodrama. But these first
Nevertheless, each work is manifestly drama of animated referential imagery, continue works were simply concerned with capturing
different, while each at the same time concerns to deal with similar problems. and preserving any portion of an event or
itself with certain of the same questions. Each, In ways different from the flicker film, Gehr's reality, while the historical awareness of film
in emphasizing the single frame through Wait (I968) also stresses the frame along with in Gehr's History and other recent fixed-
flicker, also stresses film as a system of frames, light. Two people are seen at a table reading. camera-position works brings with it different
the creation of space through modulations Several changes in camera position occur concerns. How the space of the image is
in time, the screen frame, and the viewer's during this short work. In the course of constituted and affected by light and time and
physiological interactions with the projected filming, the light in the room remained constant, how it is perceived in time are crucial
image. but by way of single frame time-exposure preoccupations.
For instance, Ray Gun Virus proceeds in shooting, what results are radical light and Hollis Frampton's Lemon (1969) becomes an
gentle but complex colour systems. Its track spatial changes in irregular rhythms. Gehr's homage to light and colour as both the lemon
consists entirely of sprocket hole sound, the method emphasizes that film is actually and camera remain stationary, while the light
sound of the film itself as it moves through the composed of individual frames with only the source moves gently and subtly. At times the
projector. Images appear on the screen, illusion of movement. lemon appears in relief, slowing, becoming flat
contingent upon the systems of colour While the flicker film and a work such as and then silhouetted. Lemon narrates light's
patterning and their durations. And through Wait are concerned, in their respective relationship to space in film, as it records the
afterimages, colours appear superimposed. fashions, with the single frame, conjuring powers of light to radically alter an
Changes in hue create alterations in eye S:TREAM:S:S:ECTION:S:ECTION:S:S: image. In Transparency (1969) the images seem
convergence for the viewer and the screen ECTIONED (1970), Sharits's latest work, seeks to move in waves from coloured abstract
seems to expand some of the time, and to to explore film as a strip, or as Sharits explains streaks to the actual images of moving cars as
contract at others. At times, the colour and it, 'film as a line in time', drawing the viewer's Gehr alters camera speeds during shooting; the
light seem to extend out from the screen into the attention to it as it passes vertically through the camera is, in this way, harnessed to defeat the
theatre space, creating a new space for the projector. Normally one doesn't notice this, and illusory representations that it is recording,

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