Page 54 - Studio International - November December 1975

room were diagrams explaining the works being shown its most seductive— is allowed to invade the whole image.
inside. But nature is not allowed to steal the show : it is admitted
With the exception of Mirror Film, all the works only on the artist's own terms. For the essential element in
belonging to the category of pure film employ two this image is not the play of sunlight on moving water, but
projectors. Towards/Away From was shot specifically that static, geometrical, screen-like raft floating at
for the ICA show. (Though later versions were reshot for anchor, a point of rest in the midst of flux. To
the The New Art exhibition and for an Arts Council understand what drew the artist to use this image, we
travelling exhibition, Beyond Painting and Sculpture, must turn to an earlier work, Confine, in which a
using respectively the Hayward Gallery and the Arts photograph of himself was filmed with the use of a
Council offices in Piccadilly.) A film is shot of the artist's zoom lens. In projection, the artist tried to confine the
right foot walking towards the ICA entrance in the Mall. expanding and contracting image of the photograph
Another film is then shot of the artist's left foot as he within a rectangle (the same size as the original
retraces his steps away from the building. The two films photograph) drawn on the wall, by walking towards and
are projected side by side. Again the image is of the away from it. What the artist found in the raft, therefore,
artist himself, represented metonymically by his feet, was a 'found' equivalent of the photograph/drawn
separated and recombined to express his ambiguous rectangle— but one element in two images, one
feelings towards an art institution. (Significantly, it is the overlapping the other, instead of one 'full' element being
'right' that moves towards the institution, the 'left' away confined within another 'empty' one.
from it.) The seemingly directional action is in fact The same ICA Independent Film Festival saw the first
directionless. As in many of Dye's works, there is a jokey, showing of another performance piece, Western
self-deprecatory quality here, as what first appears to be a Reversal (1973). Again the initial image has been 'found'
purposeful pair of feet move in and out of sync. in the world, but this time it is a length of already
existing film, an extract from a conventional 'cowboy'
film, Blazing Guns and Bloody Arrows. This is projected
Dye's performance pieces are shown in a 'cinema' via sixteen moveable mirrors (4 x 3 in) fixed close
rather than a 'gallery' situation and are often included in together on a frame. The effect on the screen is of a static
talks he has given about his work in art schools and grid superimposed upon the moving image. One by one,
elsewhere. They all involve a processing of film material the artist moves these mirrors so that the sixteen
during projection by the artist himself. Unlike a number of fragments of the image overlap on one spot : the image is,
'expanded cinema' film-makers, Dye does not intervene as it were, imploded, leaving a rectangle of shimmering
at the development stage, nor does he treat the celluloid. light. The original film was chosen specifically for its
No special lighting effects are used. At the filming stage, normative character. Not only is the 'Western' the
the only departure from 'straight' shooting is the use (in archetypal film genre, but the values embodied in it are a
two works) of the zoom lens. In each case, the work is simplified expression of those of the Western world as a
conceived in reverse, as it were — the filming or selection whole : the ideology of individualism, the aggressive
of material being carried out with the 'performance' in staking out of territorial claims. Deprived of its soundtrack,
mind. Often the projection replicates or rectifies actions the action of the film looks more than ever like empty
performed in shooting. Thus, in Overlap, first performed posturing. But the process of subversion is carried
further, through fragmentation and subtraction to
ultimate 'dematerialization', by 'superimposition' —the
parts are made to cancel each other out. I use inverted
commas here because, in fact, there is neither
dematerialization nor superimposition. The original image
is a materialization only in terms of cinematic illusion and,
although the sections of image are removed in a temporal
sequence, when directed on to one spot, they are
projected, being light, simultaneously. A reversal also
operates in terms of narrative structure : whereas the
normal process is one of gradually piecing information
together to produce increased signification, here the film
becomes less and less intelligible as it proceeds. In the
final 'implosion' there is also a physical 'reversal' of the
light beam : the projector-to-mirrors light pyramid is
'reversed' in the mirrors-to-screen light pyramid.

Four frames from Overlap
Installation : Paris Biennale, September 1975 Dye's ICA show of 1972 contained three extremely
spare, self-referential 'installation' works : Cross-
Reference Loops, Projection-Introjection, and Hand-
in 1973 at the Independent Cinema Festival at the ICA, Piece. But perhaps the most important of his
two films are shot showing a raft on a pond : in one film installation pieces is Unsigning: for eight projectors,
the raft is zoomed in on, in the other it is zoomed away conceived specifically for The New Art exhibition at the
from. In projection, one projector— containing the film Hayward Gallery in 1972. Dye's first intention was to
with the zoom in — is stationary, with the image projected present a variety of works, as in his ICA show. However,
small. The other projector—containing the zoom away confronted by the possibility of having a large number of
from — is hand-held. The artist attempts to keep the two projectors at his disposal, he conceived a new work
rafts overlapping and in scale with each other. Thus the involving eight of them. These are placed in a circle,
moving, hand-held projector image area is at first smaller facing inwards at a height of five feet. In the centre, at the
than the static projector image area, but as the film same level, is a small screen (9 x 6 in), freely suspended
progresses the hand-held image becomes larger. At from the ceiling by a single thread. Each projector
various moments during projection it is difficult to contains a short loop of film, consisting of ten seconds of
ascertain which is the moving image and which the image and five seconds of darkness. Each image shows
static, or whether it is the raft, the camera or the projector the artist's hand writing one letter of his name, one letter
that is moving. The present time of projection — projector per projector. Some of the images are caught by the
hand-held like a camera — is merged with, becomes screen as it revolves and, because the projectors are
indistinguishable from, the past time of filming, thus directed at one central point, an overlapping — and also
producing a typical loop-like structure. a partial bleaching — of the images occurs. As the
For the first time, however, the image itself is not self- projectors are not synchronized, the letters come up in
referential : it is not of the artist and/or camera in the act innumerable combinations of sequences and overlaps.
of filming. In this, it marks a new departure in Dye's work. Those images not caught by the screen are projected, out
Now the world — and, what is more, the natural world at of focus, onto the wall of the room. The name is never
206