Two Correlated Rotations

1969

Dir. Dan Graham, Super8 B/W

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Description

2 super 8mm films. Two cameramen each hold cameras so that their viewfinders are extensions of their eyes and visual fields. They begin facing each other one foot way. They walk in counter spirals, the outside performer moving gradually outward while the inside performer walks inward approaching the center. Their aim, which is still in the sate of a learning process, is to as nearly as possible be continuously centering their cameras (and eyes) view on the forntal eye position of the other. Geometrically the rotation of the performers' encks and also of their path walked keeps the camera/eye sight lineof both cameras' images along the axis of the horizon line of the 360 surrounding space; the line of sight of both cameras' images when the cameras are facing each other passes through the center of the spirals and the interior of the 360 topological spatial enclosure.Each performer's moves (and image of the other) refelects the other in the reciprocal information necessary to achieve continous aim in teh image(s) read by teh spectator apprehending the (feedback) relation of the two images. The two filmed images of the filmmakers with cameras to their eyes (made by the opposite filmmaker) are simultaneously each other's subject (observer) and object (observed). The spectator's attention is part of a three-way relation (circuit) between the two performers' and the spectators' attention. In the specator's view, it is impossible to sepearate the two cameras' mechanisms, the two minds and bodies from the feedback of reciprocal intelligence between them read in the image. In the viewing the film on right angle walls, both images are simmultaneous and synchronous. Both filmmaker's and viewer's responses appear in the presnt time to them. The film recorded time is contained in the mechanical operation o fthe cameras' and projectors' rotation. Due to mechanical irregularity, these may be slightly saster or slower in relation to each other in the screening, subtle timing differences affecting the spectator's preceptual (brain's) reading of that time.