Cube and Room Drawings

“This film was shot with the camera placed above a space. It is placed so that the floor below is seen receding dramatically into perspective. Drawings are produced on the floor that deny the perspective of the floor and reinforce the verticality of the film plane. However, when the performer walks across the drawings, the perspective of the floor is reasserted. Interaction between the performer in the space, rotation of drawings and the drawings produce a fluctuating perceptions of the filmed space, the receding floor, and the drawings which emphasize the vertical plane of the screen. Negative and positive image shifts are incorporated to develop perceptual discrepancies. They produce a kind of perceptual distortion that subverts the logical interpretation of information based on prior experience. For example, a cube is drawn in black in negative (white chalk): the drawing appears black. The image shifts to positive and another cube is drawn with white chalk (black in Filming). Both drawings appear to have been drawn with black chalk.”

David Haxton (note for a programme of MOMA, Cineprobe, New York, January 1978)