Paul Sharits (1943-1993)

ELEMENT STUDIES: ROCK/WATER/SKY/FIRE (1971-5) 2-screen, color, silent,

                                                                                                18fps=15 minutes

                                                “A” “B”

“Notes on Landscape”

            Now, fall 1980, that I have began embarking on a number of films from/of “nature”, it seems appropriate to release ELEMENT STUDIES. I am or will be shooting footage of volcano eruptions (Stromboli), diamonds (Diamond institute, L.A.), swaps in Florida, dune structures in the Sahara, earth configurations in the American Southwest deserts, etc.

            My work is usually characterized as highly perceptual “abstract” and/or self-reflexive of the film material/process; occasionally, an “inner landscape” is expressed (particularly in RAZOR BLADES and T, O, U, C, H, I, N, G). Aside from S: TREAM: S: S: ECTION…,I’ve issued no exterior landscape films. Nevertheless, I have attempted, over the years, a number of “nature films” As early as the mid-50’s I shot 8mm sketches of grass, trees, rain, etc.; these have all been destroyed. During my “interior landscape period”, while living in Aspen, summer 1968, my prolonged immersion in the Rockies, the salvation of my childhood in Colorado, I not only shot the Roaring Fork River (for S: TREAM: S…) but also shot rock surfaces/textures, interwoven with solid color frames, culminating in a vibratory field where the rocks’ grains and moss spots became optical confused with the “open-eye phosphenes” caused by the blank color “flicker”; never too happy with that footage, I am re-shooting ROCK DISSOLVE again, in 1981 in the Rockies—13 years later. (When my family and myself would leave Denver and begin the ascent into the Rockies, I always got literally high and I carry my love of those mountains with me everywhere/always. My favorite meditation is to imagine that I am a deep-clear lake in the mountains. Whenever I have a choice, I become proximate to a stream or lake, preferably in a mountain contexts; I am also extremely fond of deserts and, of course, the sea.)

            The footage, in the order of appearance, is:

            1. rock strata-along the banks of the Niagara River, before it empties into Lake Ontario. 1975, while an artist-in-residence at Artpark, Lewiston, N.Y. (Originally a 3-screen panorama study);

            2. flow patterns of the Niagara river. Same place/time as the rock strat. (originally a 4-screen panorama study);

            3. fire juxtaposed to a rhythmic flow of cloud formations. Shot during S.W. American desert trip, 1971. The fire is a burning car which Indians had set on fire to attract and trick passing cars at night. The Indians sat off in the darkness, getting a great deal of amusement from watching concerned travelers come up to inspect the scene of the “disaster”; the Indians were having their laughs, as if watching a hilarious t.v. program. The clouds were shot to create a sort of inventory of “cloudness”—thousands of shots of thousands of different cloud formations; these are edited in rhythms like those of fire’s flame pulses.