Abstract Film and Beyond

1977

Current Developments, by Malcolm Le Grice, pp. 124–126, 129. Studio Vista, an imprint of Cassel & Collier Macmillan Publishers Ltd., London.

Some of the current [1977] systemic uses of the camera have developed from involvement in a strict time-lapse form conceived in terms of a controlled observation device. Interesting work in this area has been done by William Raban and Chris Welsby, both separately and, earlier, in collaboration. Their most important work together is River Yar (1971) which comprises a three week period in autumn and a three week period in spring, time-lapsed, day and night. Each three week period is taken from an identical viewpoint, overlooking a river, and is recorded on thirty-five minutes of film, the spring and autumn sequences being projected side by side in a two-screen format. Since this film, both have explored different systemic structures for the camera, sometimes a strict sampling of time-based units, sometimes using other determinants for the length of the sample.... In Welsby's Windmill II (1971) the camera motor speed is mechanically determined by the rate at which a windmill turns—as the wind speed increases, so does the camera speed, causing the visible effects of the wind in the trees to retain a constant textural movement, whilst other events, like traffic movement and film exposure, vary in response to the changes. In his Running Film (1972), each shot lasts for ten seconds while a figure runs away from the camera as far as he can in the time, returning and repeating the action for each ten second burst. Time determines a body/action space. Another of his works exploring wind speed and direction as a determinant of the observational is his most "organic" film, the two-screen Wind Vane Film (versions made in 1970 and 1972). In this, two cameras were mounted side by side on tripods where the panning heads were attached to wind vanes. The cameras and a stereo tape recorder were then set running and the camera direction and movement determined by the wind. pp. 124–125. Another identifiable sampling tendency has been that relating to spatial or rotational movements of the camera. A number of film-makers have independently explored the use of a controlled lateral movement of the camera in discrete units of time and degrees moved. Again, Chris Welsby, with Fforest Bay II (1972) contributed to this direction, as did John Ducane with Together at Last and Pan Film (both 1972); and more recently, Heinz Emigholz with Arrow Plane (1973). All these films are concerned with changing spacial perception through progressively altering the rate of change of the image. In fact, much of the work involving systemic structures has, perhaps unconsciously, involved an almost mathematical process of stabilizing certain variables, whilst others are shifted, showing correlations rarely noticed in films concerned with subjective response and expression. All the above films in some way explore the concept of sampling from the panning action of the camera. In each, when time compression results in a rapid apparent motion, then the rate of change in the images begins to visibly deform the space being recorded. pp.145–146.

Malcolm Le Grice—1977

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