Paul Sharits (1943-1993)

Pink Interface: Mixed Metaphor                    Nov 74           

(Mixing colors is mixing a conception and a representation [iconic] of it and its actual indexical from into one theoretic statement)

The 4 individual 3-4 min. long films, running at 16 fps, are each structural so as to evoke clearly the shutter principle, upon which film is based (as a “recording” metaphor of a stage in human consciousness). By overlapping the screens one observes a more direct sign—immediately and constantly: indexical–of shutter activity. Because each of the 4 projectors runs at a slightly different speed, the shutters are out of synch, out of phase; but they also fluctuate enough in speed so that 2 of the systems, overlapped, interfaced, will oscillate into an in an out of ordered relation as well as asynchronous relations and thereby an “actual” (non-recorded) “shutter” pulse is generated. This pulse can reveal more about shutter functioning than can looking as a shutter blade moving (this, to human eyes is a blur of seemingly continuous motion-image and one cannot calculate, without resort to deductive reflection, a particular speed or a characteristic pulse). The colors selected for these 4 modules, and the structuring of the colors in score form, the entire process of constructing the piece are all united in a micro to macro relation to each-other in that they (together) insist upon essential-shutterness.