Circles of Confusion

Circles of Confusion uses as its image three central elements of the analytic cinema, the hot spot, the screen and flicker. The film is seen as pulsating and flickering circles of coloured light (red, green, blue) which move around the frame. Where they intersect, they display a variety of secondary colours. The film was shot with a hand held camera off a ‘Scotch-light’ screen which was illuminated by projector light and coloured by separation filters. The term ‘circles of confusion’ belongs to the physics of lenses, in particular having to do with focus. In this film it refers to focus of my own mental and emotional energies as a system (an irrational system) for organising the elements of the film. Each original roll was shot on a different day trying each day to maintain a different emotional state within myself. The material was then edited into elaborate circles of contradiction derived by riding the crest of an infinitely regressive, irrational thought. The contra-dictions led to utter confusion, and out of confusion to revelation. – B.B.