Cartoons 16mm, 40 minutes total (1974-75).
A series of
playful films frame aspects of the medium in unlikely and ironic ways
with each films posing a riddle or joke about then contemporary concepts
in avant-garde film. For instance, An Angry Dog is a hand-held animation
made from a Cracker-Jack toy, and Before the Fact shows filmmaker Saul
Levine with students trying to mimic a previously recorded phrase and
then trying to imitate each other imitating the recording. In It
Dawn Down an ordinary take-up reel spins to make colorful and delicate patterns
even though the film is black and white, while The Central Finger creates
a perspectival puzzle from the hand of a mannequin.
Includes:
An
Angry Dog
16mm,
silent, 5 1/2 minutes (1974)
It
Dawn Down 16mm,
silent, 5 1/2 minutes (1974)
The
Central Finger 16mm,
silent, 5 1/2 minutes (1974)
Before
the Fact 16mm,
6 minutes, (1974), made with
Saul Levine and Students at S.U.N.Y. at Binghamton
The
Autobiography Of Benjamin Franklin 16mm,
silent, 4 minutes (1975)
New
York State Primaries 16mm,
5 1/2 minutes (1975)
Still
At Work 16mm,
4 minutes (1975)
Acts of Light a trilogy, 16mm, 55 minutes total.(1972-74)
This is a trilogy
consisting of Rate
of Change ,
Angular
Momentum
and Circles
of Confusion
.
Together they develop a study of pure color based on the notion that film
is essentially change and not motion. The films build one on the other
as first pure change, then relational change, and finally, irrational
change. They can be seen together or as separate works.
Rate of Change 16mm, 18 minutes (1972)
This film has no original, no frames, only slow continuously shifting colors, cycling around the perimeter of the spectrum. The changes are so slow as to be unseen, yet they alter perception of the color.
Angular Momentum 16mm, 20 minutes (1973)
Nearly continuous color changes rotate around a spectrum, but this time at varying speeds of rotation and degrees of intensity. The colors on the left start white and rotate very slowly. As the film progresses the color values become darker and the speed of rotation increases until, by the end, the color is nearly black and rotates around the spectrum about once per second. On the right, the opposite occurs, starting black and progressing nearly to white. The film has an improvised electronic soundtrack by Richard Teitelbaum.
Circles of Confusion 16mm, 15 minutes (1974)
In this film, circles of colored light (red, green and blue) pulsate and flicker as they move around the frame. Where they intersect, they display a variety of secondary colors. The term "circles of confusion" comes from the physics of lenses. There it has to do with the focus of light. Here it refers to the focus of mental and emotional energies as an irrational system for composing a film.
Demolition of a Wall 16mm, 30 minutes (1973)
Made entirely from the Lumiere's 1896 film Demolition of a Wall, Brand's 1973 version takes six frames from the falling wall and shows them in all 720 possible orders. With a piano track that follows a similar pattern, the film celebrates cinema's origins by systematically iterating the many paths it has yet to explore.
*
Preserved by the New York Public Libraryooon
Touch Tone Phone Film 16mm, 8 minutes (1973)
The phone rings and a woman gets up to answer it. This event is recorded on film but we only see it as a sliding strip. Each time the action repeats, the film strip slides past and stops at a frame closer to her picking up the phone.
"The film's form mimics the hiatus of machine-human interfaceÉ(it) impresses primarily as a wittily anecdotal metaphor." - Ian Christie
Moment 16mm, 25 minutes (1972)
A
view of a gas station is seen from inside, behind a multi-paneled tire
ad display. In a 2 1/2 minute sequence, ordinary events are seen intermittently
through the opening display. This sequence is then divided and rearranged
seven times in reverse order, each time in smaller units until finally
the film appears to move smoothly backwards. In information theory a "moment"
is defined as the shortest duration at which no distinctions can be made
between units of information. This film dynamically reveals film's basic
unit, the frame.
* Preserved by the New York Public Libraryon-exploration of the line between human information and machine information: a dynamic revelation of film's basic unit, the frame.'
Zip Tone Cat Tune 16mm, 8 minutes (1972)
A simple home movie of a cat is reprocessed through a "Zip-a-tone" dot pattern making a complex of layers. In combination with freeze frames, positive and negative, and color motion, this work attempts to visually construct a system of overlays like those in Baroque musical composition.
Pong Ping Pong 16mm, film and sound environment,25 minutes (1971)
A film installation revealing the circular and reciprocating nature of the film medium and activating the space between projector and projection. The film is projected from a custom turntable that moves the entire image back and forth and slowly around 360 degrees. The image is projected onto a 40 foot diameter circle of 24 sceens. The subject of the film is a ping pong game. The camera, mounted on the turntable machine, swings back and forth while the entire mechanism slowly moves around and around the table looking in at the game. With the film projected from the center, the space is turned inside out.
Always Open/ Never Closed 16mm, silent, 13 minutes (1971)
A woman wakes up, gets dressed, makes breakfast and walks down the street. This ordinary ritual becomes extraordinary as it is seen in the dance-like structure of continuous lap dissolves and continuous spectral color shifts.
Tree16mm, 8 minutes (1970)
An old tree sits on a mound in an Ohio farm field. The filming of the tree and the metrical editing of the film is organized around the tree's natural elements: water, earth, root ends, roots, trunk, limbs, branches, leaves and sun.
Organic Afghan16mm, 4 minutes (1969)
This is an abstract claymation and object animation consisting of organic shapes and crocheted afghan squares.