1999
1 minute (loop)
color
silent
images: ink on toilet paper
original form was one of a pair of films that were created while watching an existing film, here are my notes from 1999:
“this work came about through my interest in silent film. i wanted to make a work that somehow could be created while watching another film. i began with the notion of making drawings – but it seemed more important to me that if i was working with inspiration from a film, i should be watching a film while, at the same time, making another. sitting in the darkness there are only so many activities that i could come up with – especially as my super 8 camera is loud. i finally came up with the idea of animation – and began to think of a process that would allow me to create a new film very simply while watching another. so i decided to think about movie time and real time, and decided upon a different take on traditional animation by creating a series of sequential drawings that would offer some kind of movement.
i began to think about how paper absorbs ink, and had my idea worked properly, i could place a pen upon a stack of paper for the entire length of the film, and that action would generate a very large ‘blob’ on the top piece of paper, and aseried of graduating “blobs” that would get smaller and smaller determined by the distance of the layers of paper from the pen. i figured i would then be able to use each piece of paper as a single animation frame and arrive at a kind of simple image of a growing and shrinking animated blob.
i chose the film, the joyless street – specifically because the screening was the first time the film had been shown in over 75 years, and felt like a one-time experience, and i wanted my ‘action’ to have some similar significance, as if this experience for me as a filmgoer and filmmaker would be forever entwined in the resulting film.
for some reason, i began to think that regular drawing paper would be too think, and i became nervous that over the time of the film the sharpie might only absorb through 10 or 15 pieces of paper. ridiculously, i came to the conclusion that toilet paper would be a better idea, as well as using several different colored sharpies. as the movie started, i pressed the group of pens down as hard as could against the uppermost surface of a stack of 100 sheets of toilet paper.
after the first 15 minutes or so, i suddenly felt the ink seeping through the bottom of the stack of paper and onto my pants, so i stopped the action, and waited for the film to end to see what had happened. to my surprise, i found myself holding a stuck together clump of toilet paper as if someone had blown their nose and a rainbow liquid has fallen out. when i arrived home, i carefully separated the wad of soaked paper into individual sheets and used my super 8 camera to animate sequence. luckily, even though the blob maintained a consistency in size, its interior mix of blacks and oranges were ever-changing – and the edges were constantly moving.
the title “original form” was taken from a fragment of the description of the film in the program. what inspired me, was the idea that a film could be made as a direct result of a simple process – a process that could have been done many times in many theatres during many films; but done just this once, and hence, eternally connected to this showing of this film in this theater. i like to think of the result as also having a visual resonance to the original film, and when i first saw the images projected, i couldn’t help but see the “blob” as a kind of abstract aura surrounding greta garbo’s head… her presence so ethereal and magical within this film-like a fluctuating glowing orb.”