2006
hand work on pre-existing film
16mm
sound
15:30 minutes
this film was part of a joint commission between LACE and the getty research institute, as part of a group exhibition. ten artists were given access to the joan brown fluxus collection and archives at the getty towards finding a score to generate a new work. i used a score by jackson mac low which originally appeared in the book of scores and concrete poetry mac low edited with la monte young called “an anthology”.
mac low’s score is essentially a square filled with typewriter letters and symbols in total chaos, as if a cat had walked across the keys for hours. along with the image, mac low states: “the text on the opposite page may be used in any way as a score for solo or group readings, musical or dramatic performances, looking, smelling, anything else &/or nothing at all.”
so i created a simple instruction for each of the 93 different characters that appear in the score (letters, numbers, punctuation marks, and symbols), and used the symbols to determine actions that would generate a film work, a sound composition, and a “group” voice piece – all compressed into a film and its soundtrack.
the film was hand drawn with colored inks on top of a pre-existing film (an educational film from the 1950’s called “drawing the circle”); and the graphic actions drawn, pierced, sanded or cut into the film were determined by the first 500 characters of mac low’s score, reading right to left top to bottom.
examples of actions: “d” = black pen for 4 frames, “Z” = colored pens for 52 frames, and “&” = add a different color to the last action, etc. i worked with a magnifying glass and a light table so that the drawing would interact with the existing film, which i had never seen projected, allowing for a lack of control and potential unknown content or movement in the final film.
the sound composition organized the 93 different characters into 4 categories, each an equivalent to a single string on an old banjulele (a 1920’s hybrid of a banjo and a ukelele), following the score to determine which string i would pluck and in what order, with the tuning as found.
the voice piece selected a series of random “phrases” from the score and divided them into 26 different categories attached to a letter of the alphabet. i emailed the list to 50 people and asked them to choose one or both of the phrases connected to their initials, and to speak the non-words into my answering machine – these were generally things like GYZP RU EWZS, and X@ BIP GSutimOz. the voices and the plucked banjulele sounds were then layered and looped to create the soundtrack.
here is my own score, based on mac low’s score:
lowercase: scratched or black ink drawings / number = frames
a-1
b-2
c-3
d-4
e-5
f-6
g-7
h-8
i-9
j-10
k-11
l-12
m-13
n-14
0-15
p-16
q-17
r-18
s-19
t-20
u-21
v-22
w-23
x-24
y-25
z-26
capitals: colored ink / number = frames
A-2
B-4
C-6
D-8
E-10
F-12
G-14
H-16
I-18
J-20
K-22
L-24
M-26
N-28
O-30
P-32
Q-34
R-36
S-38
T-40
U-42
V-44
W-46
X-48
Y-50
Z-52
1 – 1 black frame
2 – 2 sanded white frames
3 – 3 black frames
4 – 4 sanded white frames
5 – 5 black frames
6 – 6 sanded white frames
7 – 7 black frames
8 – 8 sanded white frames
9 – 9 black frames
0 – a circle or series of circles for 10 frames
½ – repeat the last action, half or double it
¼ – repeat the last action, quarter or quadruple it
$ – 2 untouched frames
cents sign – 4 untouched frames
% – 6 untouched frames
! – 8 untouched frames
+ – an X through a single frame
? – tint an untouched frame 1 color
& – add something to the last thing done, in a different color.
# – repeat the same mark/form in opposite as a mirror
” – repeat last action twice
‘ – repeat last action once
, – color in relation to the image – one frame
; – color in relation to the image – # of previous
THE FOLLOWING RULES = THE SAME NUMBER OF FRAMES AS PREVIOUS ACTION:
* – a spiny star shape or asterisk shape
@ – a spiral drawn or scratched
( – a half circle horizontal
) – a half circle vertical
/ – diagonal line
_ – horizontal solid line
– – horizontal dotted line
: – vertical dotted line
. – dot in center of frame (drawn or hole punch)