Page 49 - Studio International - June 1974

micro-morphology of the film process, albeit one combining manual and optical printer basic unit, the fram,' 4 Formally, it consists of
of luminous intensity. procedures. seven permutations of a two-and-a-half-minute
Within the shared paradigm of film as But however important these innovations may synch-sound shot, each of which renders the
research-in-progress, Brand's work is still close be in defining the locus of the individual film, natural image and sound increasingly
to that of Sharits : it is conceptually rigorous, they are not ends in themselves. All four films incoherent until, finally, coherence is
minimalist; epistemological and literal; seem precisely designed to compel the viewer miraculously restored. What we have actually
systematic and heuristic. It is also self- to frame a series of hypotheses as to the internal witnessed is the progressive decomposition of
consciously innovatory; each of the four films relationship of the film's elements and their the original material down to its ultimate
being constructed around a technical or place within its over-all structure. The constituent as information, by means of
conceptual neologism. Thus Moment employs conceptual structures may be essentially reversing its 'direction' in decreasing lengths; so
natural images and sound within a strict serial `simple', but in the context of viewing they that the final restoration is, in fact, the opening
form; Touch Tone Phone Film incorporates the become problematic. shot running backwards frame by frame. But of
representation of 'film slip' in the projector as its Acutely so, in the case of the earliest and most course the viewer cannot detect this 'reversal',
only in-frame movement; while Rate of Change complex of the films, Moment. Brand describes since the frame is the basic unit of the film
and Angular Momentum are both made without Moment as 'a demonstration-exploration of the system and all reproducing media, in order to
the camera, the former a frameless tinted strip line between human information and machine present an illusion of continuous time/space,
ordered direct from the lab, and the latter information: a dynamic revelation of film's rely on a basic unit of information shorter than
the 'moment', i.e. the shortest duration at which
no distinction can be made between units of
information. Just as, in language, the individual
letter or phoneme only possesses 'meaning' by
virtue of its location in the alphabetic or
articulatory system, so the single frame has no
unequivocal 'meaning' (direction) when
detached from the material 'syntax' of the
filmstrip.
There is also a further level of complexity in
Moment. The filmed footage shows the forecourt
of a garage as seen through the rotating panels of
an advertising display. As the slats flip to and
fro, they reveal the outside scene only
intermittently : the re-ordering of the filmstrip
is metaphorically anticipated by the
interruption of our vision. Moreover, the
advertising image appears discontinuous, since
we're seeing it from the 'wrong' side; but as
Brand points out: 'if n —the number of panels
(divisions) in the turning display, as n
approaches infinity, the image, looking out,
approaches being backwards and continuous.'
Moment thereby reveals the parameters of film
as a recording medium in an elegant reductio ad
absurdum of mimetic cinema. The film can only
be grasped by an active process of constantly
relating what is perceived to what is known or
hypothesized, at the evident expense of 'normal'
illusionary participation.
At first sight, Brand's other 1972 film, Rate of
Change, presents a total contrast to Moment. Its
materials are wholly abstract and their ordering,
far from inviting participation, seems to resist
any but a purely sensory response. However the
change of strategy does not necessarily indicate
an abandonment of structural principle; as
Sharits observes, 'a homogeneously structured
film would be as valid an amplification of the
nature of film as would a vectorial oriented
work.'5
In Rate of Change the basic unit is the film
strip in its most elemental form - 'an elegant
device for modulating standardized beams of
energy.'6 A succession of faint, full-frame
colour fields dissolve imperceptibly into one
another. The film has neither discernible image
nor chromatic sequence; its visual 'rate of
change' appears random. By contrast, the
sound-track gives an impression of systematic

299