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Paul Sharits (American, 1943-1999)
Shutter Interface, 1975
Shutter Interface is one of Paul Sharits's multiple-screen gallery installations, which he termed "Locations." In these works, Sharits wished to reveal the material substance of cinema in its purest form:spatially.
On the wall of the gallery, a band of seven overlapping rectangles of pure color flickers and pulsates from left to right in a series of mathematically determined combinations. Each sequence is interspersed with black frames representing the action of a camera's shutter opening and closing. An abstract soundtrack punctuates each shift in hue, creating a percussive composition. The loops are of varying lengths, which allow different relationships between colors to evolve, and underscore the continuous format of the projected environment or "color space."
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About Paul Sharits
Born 1943, Denver, Colorado
Died 1993, Buffalo, New York
A noteworthy participant in the American avant-garde cinema of the 1960s and 1970s, Paul Sharits was also a teacher and proponent of "structural film." Intrigued by the physical properties of the filmstrip, its development and projection, Sharits created a series of films that examined the boundaries of physical perception. In Ray Gun Virus, created in 1966, Sharits used color fields that flicker at various rates and rhythms to capture the elements of time and frame. Works like this one approached filmmaking as an examination of the pure structures that make film a unique medium. Sharits used the term "Locations" to describe his gallery installation works, which were looped to run continuously. His advocacy helped launch experimental filmmaking at numerous colleges and universities in the United States.
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Joan Jonas (American, born 1936)
Mirage, 1976/2001
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