Part I: Art Encounters

     Contemporary film has done a good job at disguising the physical medium behind the visual illusion. We’re lead to believe that image projected in front of us is as real and tactile as a play. The inner-workings of the booth are off-limits to the viewer. The film is about the narrative, not the mechanics that makes the phenomenon possible.

     The avant-garde has done the complete opposite – at least in my eyes. Hollis Frampton has a subject-theory of film. He proposes that a film is about what appears most often. A movie’s main character, a main location or a main event is certainly on the screen more than any other character, location or event. However, “one thing has always been in the projector. Film.”

     Many avant-garde artists deal with film directly – physically. Stan Brakhage’s “Mothlight”, Gatten’s “What the Water Said”, Andrea Leuteneker’s “Bear Garden”, Vanessa O’Neill’s “Suspension” and many of Robert Schaller’s works all manipulate film in a way that camera simply cannot.

     Stan Brakhage’s “Mothlight” was made entirely with film - and only film. No light funneled through a lens was needed to shape the image – it was all done by hand. Taping thousands of moths onto two blank strips of film (I still wonder how he gathered this many bugs), a work of what Brakhage would describe as “pure cinema” was created.

     Brakhage said himself that cinema is a mature art – it needn’t borrow anything from theater or literature. Emotionally intense experiences can be created using film techniques by themselves, void of characters, plot or actors. This is a perfect explanation of David Gatten’s film “What the Water Said No. 1-3”. It’s a purely visual experience – there is no need for character development, plot structure, even a camera. It’s simply placing unexposed film in the water – letting what happens happen. It’s also a way to employ a non-linear structure in a non-narrative film. With all the film surfaces exposed at the same time, anything could happen in any projected temporal location: it’s a single moment in the water stretched out over several minutes.

     During a viewing of “Triptych”, a triple-projection film by Robert Schaller, you can’t help but to be aware of the mechanics. Three 16mm projectors are humming in unison a few rows behind you. The film is projects at an odd ratio – three times longer than a standard 4:3 projection; even the projectors are on their side, making the final area 9:4.

     Schaller takes this “stuff of film” theory a bit further than his colleagues. He hand-makes the emulsion for his films. Sometimes, this hand-made film stands on its own. In this sense, the “stuff of film” is the film itself. There is no higher level of understanding – no interpretations – just a visual experience. I’m not sure `meta` would be the right word…