Wavelength

I would preface my comments this week by saying that, I did not find the readings quite as thought provoking as the films. I feel like this may be a shared sentiment given the relatively few posts written in response to the readings this week?

Like the many structural works we have discussed by Warhol and others, Wavelength questions the viewers’ ability to maintain interest in the subject captured by the camera; all attempts are however futile for the viewer is intended to fail and in so doing the experience becomes one of introspection, a mediation of how the individual engages with the film.

Given that the film is the product of an extensive process of thought, one might suggest that the film is in itself rather procedural. Taking into consideration Snows’ words, “I meant it as a summation of everything that I’ve thought about, everything,” I would suggest that it is Wavelength’s procedural nature that allows it to be interpreted as a metaphor for consciousness.

It seemed to me as if the camera’s gradual progression from the initial wide angled shot of the room to the close-up of the photograph, from uncertainty to certainty, can be compared with the viewer’s process of thought. Certainly, once I had come to realize that the four corporeal events transpiring beneath the aim of the camera were of secondary importance, I was compelled to seek out the true subject of the film. Tradition dictates that the subject be framed in the middle of the initial shot, and indeed Snow obliges us with this one point of formalism. However, entirely unaware of the camera’s intentions, the viewer strains to see the eventual focal point, mimicking and even accompanying the gradual progression of the zoom. I thought it was particularly interesting to consider the point at which the camera gets so close to the photograph that two images appear, one remains central and fixed, and the other is out of focus and growing. It is almost as if the zoom of the camera has stopped (the photograph remains fixed) but the viewers’ process of thought, left unimpaired, continues to zoom in on the photograph, producing the faint secondary imagine. The effect created is similar almost to that observed when one crosses one's eyes.

I must admit, more often than not, I struggle to enjoy structural films; I think that this is mainly borne out of an unfortunate lack of patience. That said, I tend to revisit the films once I have researched the artist’s motivations behind the piece, at which point I find myself liberated from my initial confusion and able to give the piece its due consideration. When I revisited Wavelength I found myself wondering whether I had unintentionally ruined the functionality of the film by replacing my own process of thought and consciousness with that of someone else’s?