Tics

Picture this: One second in a Paris Metro station. A film about time and reference. An exercise in optical printing procedures, performed upon just 24 frames of film, shot without looking through the camera viewfinder and recording a one second event in a Paris Metro station, Republic, actually. The RATP television monitor, meanwhile, blinks its message: ‘Le point sur l’actualite’.
Consider this: A film strip comprising 24 frames cut from footage shot at random and without looking through the camera viewfinder, is repeated with variations effected by various optical and contact printing techniques. Stretch printing, superimposition and enlargement and a progressive modification of the original colour values transform the source footage. A matte in the corner of the film frame repeats this footage to give a literal frame of reference. The music is constructed from found concrete sounds electronically transformed in ways analagous to the image transformation procedures. – B.S.