kemalersoy

In the world of cinema, there are many ways to manipulate the viewers. It can be achieved by using a narrative in which the viewers feel sympathy for the main characters or more importantly by using the effectiveness of the perception conceptually. There is a clear distinction between those two features since they open up to the viewers from different perspectives. While a narrative based film does not need too much thinking and is easy to read, a conceptual film focuses on the ideas of the work behind the images that are not shown onscreen and needs a great amount of thinking in order to be perceived and read properly. Meranda states this as; “Structural films are almost always conceptual artworks where the actual experience is the process of thinking about the film and not just consuming what is on the screen.” Paul Sharits’s T,O,U,C,H,I,N,G, Ernie Gehr’s Serene Velocity, and Michael Snow’s Wavelenght are great examples of structural films as they show how the perception of the structural films can lead the viewers in different directions in terms of interpreting these films in various numbers depending on its use of sound, emphasis on materiality of the film, visual imagery, the creation of space within and outside the film and the feeling of repetition in many ways.

Paul Sharits, an influential visual artist in the Structural film movement, is well known through his extraordinary piece, T,O,U,C,H,I,N,G. This is a significant structural film since it can be interpreted in countless numbers even though the film seems simple to perceive. In my opinion, this simplified side of the film is what makes it more complicated and profound in terms of approaching the ideas of the film. Not only in this film but also other structural films by different artists such as Len Lye’s A Colour Box and Malcolm Le Grice’s  Berlin Horse and many more pieces have the same effect on me. The reason is that the simpler it gets in order to emphasise the materiality of the film, the more it “negates the filmic illusion and places the focus on the function, as well as on the viewers’ subjective perception” (Sharits). Thus, it is inevitable to consider how the viewers perceive these films psychologically under the illumination of the simplicity of the pieces.

    The way the sound is constructed in T,O,U,C,H,I,N,G has a major impact on how the viewers react to this piece psychologically since it is also as powerful as its’ flickering imagery. Beauvais states that “the soundtrack also developed into an equally important, rhythmic and independent element within his film. With the single loop word, “destroy,” one hears such things as “It’s gone” or “It’s off,” “It’s cut,” “His straw,” “History,” and more.” I completely agree that this powerful element of this piece increases the possible interpretations towards it and confuses the viewers mind. This illusion of the sound is a great factor that causes the various interpretations since no one can clearly hear what the exact word is in T,O,U,C,H,I,N,G. It ends up creating many opinions and various perceptions in the viewers. Therefore, the more one thinks about this piece, the more interpretations occur simultaneously, even though the piece might appear as a simple work of art at first.

Ernie Gehr, American experimental filmmaker, is well known for his innovative film Serene Velocity. His piece mostly focuses on emphasising the materiality of the film by using repetition of the images, fixed camera perspective, and creating a space which is continuing and not bounded within the film strip, with the ideas of the work underneath the images onscreen. Aside from drawing the attention to the materiality of the piece, Serene Velocity also creates a fabulous visual experience for the viewers through the optical illusion that creates geometric shapes in the viewer’s perception. Gehr expresses his thoughts about the materiality of film in the following words:

Traditional and established avant garde film teaches film to be an image, a representing. But film is a real thing and as a real thing it is not imitation. It does not reflect on life, it embodies the life of the mind. Film is a variable intensity of light, an internal balance of time, a movement within a given space. (Gehr)

The looping word in T,O,U,C,H,I,N,G, “destroy”, loses it meaningfulness when it is repeated over time in Sharits’s piece. As he indicates: “ “destroy” actually destroys itself.” Even though that word loses its power after being repeated many times, this self destroying sound creates a space pulls the viewers into that space and draws them more since the distance disappears between the screen and the viewers. In my opinion, the silence in Gehr’s Serene Velocity has the same impact on the viewers. The lack of sound in this piece manages to create a space and break the distance by “exploring the use of fixed photographic images, perception and time” (Boruszknowski, 53). For instance; If there was a sound in Serene Velocity, it would not be as impressive as it is now. Because this piece manages to achieve to pull the viewers into that space by “using the medium to expand minds and stretch the limits of what is possible to see in simple images” (Hall). In other words, through perception.

Michael Snow, Canadian artist and experimental filmmaker, is one of the most significant names who has made great structural films. Especially; his piece Wavelenght, a landmark of Avant-garde cinema, is quite influential since it is so meaningful and well thought. Watching Wavelenght and the slowly zooming camera for forty five minutes is a great experience because of the way it makes the viewers question the space and time in the room that they are in. Even though we see a similar creation of space and time in Sharits’s Touching and Gehr’s Serene Velocity, this relation between the time and space in Snow’s piece appears more profound in terms of the dense relation of the sound and image of the piece. In my opinion, the use of the sound in Wavelenght is quite irritating. It is a type of rising sine wave tone which is not that easy to listen. However, it is one of the major aspects that I find highly interesting about this piece. Because after watching halfway through the film, you start not to hear it even though the frequency of its tone rises. Interestingly, the perception towards the combination of the sound and image works against each other. While the impact of the sound disappears, the influence of the image on the viewers’ perception starts to become more recognizable. Sitney says that in Snow’s film “simplicity is foregrounded” (Sitney). However, I completely disagree with this statement. Even though Snow’s piece appears simple, its only the imagery which appears to be “simple”. The psychological perception of the piece is not that simple in addition to the ideas and the various interpretations of the work. “Michael Snow’s work is in many ways the most dense and complex.” (Boruszknowski). Snow expresses his own ideas about Wavelenght in the following words:

I wanted to make a summation of my nervous system, religious inklings, and aesthetic ideas. I was thinking of planning for a time monument in which the beauty and sadness of equivalence would be celebrated, thinking of trying to make a definitive statement of pure Film space and time, a balancing of ‘illusion’ and ‘fact,’ all about seeing. The space starts at the camera’s (spectator’s) eye, is in the air, then is on the screen, then is within the screen (the mind). (Snow)

As I mentioned before, the structural films are open for many possible interpretations since it can be perceived in different ways by the viewers. I believe that the structural films happen to belong to the viewers since they can vary and expand the meaning based on their personal perceptions. In other words, structural films free themselves after they are publicized. Therefore; even though Snow explains his ideas about his own film in these words, limiting the content of the work only based on that would not be fair for the viewers who can interpret it from a different perspective.

In conclusion, Paul Sharits’s T,O,U,C,H,I,N,G, Ernie Gehr’s Serene Velocity, and Michael Snow’s Wavelenght are all related with each other in terms of the materiality of the film. More importantly, those are three major examples within the structural film movement that creates its own space and time with the use of sound and visual imagery. Therefore, with the creation of this space, perception of these films varies along with the interpretations.