Discovered in summer of 1985, of a set of "haiku-imagistic films" I did before coming to my characteristic style, as in RAY GUN VIRUS; I thought I'd destroyed all these pre-pure films, in about 1969-1970, the time of my separation from my first marriage. The film concerns my marriage, which lasted seven years; it was shot during its first year, when I was a painting student at the University of Denver. It is full of apprehensions, in a montage style which counterposes "opposites": sexuality and religion; seasonal opposites; hopefulness undercut by fears of eventual separation (the image of a statue of two women, arm in arm, reading a book). I find it visually and kinetically interesting, after all these years.
1962, 16mm, b&w/si, 12m (18fps), $35
Soundtrack by Bob Grimes.
Blank color frequencies space out and optically feed into black and white images of one lovemaking act which is seen simultaneously from both sides of its space and both ends of its time.
"Thanks for the strip ... it IS that/cut to the bone of some matter that does really concern me: how a man and a woman meet nakedly head-on among the colors ... lovely: I can hardly wait to see the entirety of that vision ...." - Stan Brakhage
"PIECE MANDALA/END WAR reminds me very much of the back light (GoKo) which illuminates the spirit of Buddha - yet no image of Buddha appears; rather, a couple of naked bodies. I have never imagined that GoKo could really happen and illuminate as in this film." - Takahiko Iimura, Film Art
1966, 16mm, b&w/color/so, 5m, $20
Although affirming projector, projection beam, screen, emulsion, film frame structure, etc., this is not an "abstract film"/projector as pistol/time-colored pills/yes=no/mental suicide and then, rebirth as self-projection. "... just colors and strobe ... 'light-color energy patterns (analogies of neural transmission systems) generate internal color-time shape and allow the viewer to become aware of the electrical-chemical functionings of his own nervous system' ... It's true." - David Curtis, International Times
"RAY GUN VIRUS is a work in which no images appear yet one can get pure identity on film. ... projected film itself makes the viewer aware of where he stands. RAY GUN VIRUS is not so-called 'Psychedelic Cinema' but even more and goes beyond it through Sharits' bright clarification of the media." - Takahiko Iimura, Film Art Exhibition: Fourth Int'l Experimental Film Competition, Knokke-Le-Zoute; "Twenty Years of American Personal Film" anthology, National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, 1966.
Collections: Museum of Modern Art, NY; Royal Archive of Belgium.
1966, 16mm, color/so, 14m, $45
Approximately 50 words visually "repeated" in varying sequential and positioned relationships/spoken word soundtrack/structured, each frame being a different word or word fragment, so that the individual words optically-conceptually fuse into one three and three-quarter minute-long word.
1966, 16mm, color/so, 4m, $20
Based, in part, on the Tibetan Mandala of the Five Dhyani Buddhas / a journey toward the center of pure consciousness (Dharma-Dhatu Wisdom) / space and motion generated rather than illustrated / time-color energy create virtual shape / in negative time, growth is inverse decay.
"The screen, illuminated by Paul Sharits' N:O:T:H:I:N:G, seems to assume a spherical shape, at times - due, I think, to a pearl-like quality of light his flash-frames create ... a baroque pearl, one might say - wondrous! ... One of the most beautiful films I've seen." - Stan Brakhage
"You are pulled into the world of color, your color senses are expanded, enriched. You become aware of changes, of tones around your own daily reality. Your vision is changed. You begin to see light on objects around you. ... Your experience range is expanded. You have gained a new insight. You have become a richer human being." - Jonas Mekas
"In essence there are only three flicker films of importance, ARNULF RAINER, THE FLICKER, and N:O:T:H:I:N:G. ... In terms of the subject we have discussed here, it is Sharits' N:O:T:H:I:N:G that opens the field for the structural film with a flicker base." - P. Adams Sitney
1968, 16mm, color/so, 36m, $105
Starring poet David Franks whose voice appears on soundtrack/an uncutting and unscratching mandala.
"Merges violence with purity." - P. Adams Sitney
"Surrealist tour-de-force." - Parker Tyler
On "10 Best Films of 1969" lists of Soren Agenoux and Jonas Mekas.
1968, 16mm, color/so, 12m, $35
A mapping of an image of the linear passage of "16mm film frames" and "emulsion scratches" onto an actual 16mm film strip (the unperceived film "print") / the aural word "miscellaneous" is extended to a length of eight minutes by serial fragmentation, looping, staggering and overlaying / a variational but non-developmental strand thru time. / Dedicated to Lynda Benglis.
"Like S:S:S:S:S:S, INFERENTIAL CURRENT is concerned with the movement of film through the projector and with the distinction between the film strip itself and its image, as it appears on the screen. In this film, the image is that of a whole film strip, with sprocket holes. The movement of the sprocket holes shift speeds and creates illusions of motions (reversals of direction, etc.) but also alludes to the motion of the actual movement of the actual film going through the projector. There is an inter-play of two generations of vertical scratches, which provides an ironic effect." - David James, Art & Cinema
1971, 16mm, color/so, 8m, $25
A conceptual lap dissolve from "water currents" to "film strip current"/Dedicated to my son, Christopher. "Yes. S:S:S:S:S:S is beautiful. The successive scratchings of the stream-image film is very powerful vandalism. The film is a very complete organism with all the possible levels really recognized." - Michael Snow
"In his earlier flicker films, Sharits expores the mechanisms of perception and projection, and now he takes his investigations to their logical extreme - to the nature of the film-strip itself. ... The fascination and energy of the film derive from its multi-dimensional dialectics, in which all available systems of experience are contrasted with their logical opposites/complements: sound against vision, film as representation against film as object, circular against linear structure, progression against regression, past against whole, meaning against abstraction." - David James, Art & Cinema
Collection: Anthology Film Archives; Centre National D'Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou, Paris.
1968-1971, 16mm, color/so, 42m, $125
Dedicated to Jonas Mekas.
"There is a paradox in such artistically special (and significant) films as Sharits' very real and reflexively beautiful AXIOMATIC GRANULARITY. It is that in becoming so accessible and authentic through its refusal to be anything but itself - emulsion grain seen in color and movement - the film for most viewers is likely to be impenetrable ... the film begins to evoke a quiet flow of thought. That thought, however, is repeatedly returned to the light perceived on the screen as the film calls attention to itself through the random appearances of scratches, becoming simply and pleasantly what it is, refreshingly nothing more." - Anthony Bannon, Buffalo Evening News
Collection: Centre National D'Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou, Paris
1972-1973, 16mm, color/so, 20m, $60
Production assistance: Creative Artists Public Service Program (CAPS).
The images for this project were first obtained by enlarging, with an optical printer, frames of evenly distributed grain particles from a black and white strip of underexposed 8mm Tri-X film. The resulting 16mm black and white Plus-X copy was again blown up with an optical printer to make a negative on high contrast stock. In the final stage, using an optical printer, color gels were employed to code each of the up-to-six layers of superimposed images of grain fields; this was recorded on fine grain Ektachrome Commercial color stock. What began as dark grain particles in relatively clear (light toned) emulsion, in the 8mm specimen, at the last stage, have become colored images of grain particles in a dark field.
What I am proposing in this project is that even at the infrastructural level - and contrary to its intended purposes - the bases of film's illusionistic movement can be discerned. One might hypothesize that film is, in this respect, thoroughly illusional, on all levels from its most obvious recorded-image plateaus to its most primary image-forming depths.
1975, 16mm, color/si, 30m (18fps), $90
A set of short pure color studies, usually exploring one dominant hue. Most of these works were studies for longer projects. The last four "migraine" studies are rhythmically based around the five-cycle-per-second oscillation pulse of the typical fortification illusions preceding a migraine attack; this onset period, with its visually dynamic effects, is reported to be a quite vibrant and enjoyable state.
1. Modular Blue 2. Green Matrix 3. White Field 4. Orange Field 5. Pink Modulation A 6. Pink Modulation B 7. Temporal Frame A 8. Migraine Onset A 9. Migraine Onset B 10. Migraine Onset C 11. Migraine Onset D. (After titles, focus should be shifted to sharpen the edges of the screen.)
Collection: Centre National D'Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou, Paris
1971-1976, 16mm, color/si, 25m, $75
A highly varied and playful series of short sketches involving induced camera "mistakes," printing "errors" and various "assaults" upon film (some rephotographed) which in one way or another reveal the process/materiality of cinema. The "unframing" called for in this film (bringing the top frame line down into the viewing area as is possible by adjusting the projector framer) is a way of heightening the intended unmasking of the usually hidden vulnerability/fragility of the film strip.
1971-1976, 16mm, color/si, 30m, $90
The film consists of seven sections: the first section, "Specimen I," a "flicker" film, is the subject for the other sections of ANALYTICAL STUDIES III. ... "Specimen I," as with most of my other works, also exists as a "Frozen Film Frame," wherein the entire footage of the film is cut into strips and aligned serially between sheets of clear plexiglas.
Section I: "Specimen"
Three spectral cycles intersecting into a "flicker" work that is the basis of ... all that follows in this film.
Section II: "Divergent Strip Vectors"
Film of the first film. Two strips shot in real time are superimposed, one moving upward, the other downward. Other colors are created. Changes in speed cause various kinds of illusions.
Section III: "Document"
A documentation of how the films were shot. Shows Sharits and two assistants at work on Synchronousoundtracks. The film strip that they are shooting is superimposed over their images.
Section IV: "Strip in Strip"
A superimposition of one strip image over and a bit inside another strip image.
Section V: "Strip of Strip, A"
Not a superimposition of two strips but rather a document of an actual strip, moving upward, containing the image of another film strip, also moving upward, blurring at various speeds in rephotography.
Section VI: "Strip of Strip, B"
Same as Section V but the inner strip image is moving downward while the actual strip containing it is moving upward.
Section VII: "Strip of Strip of Strip B"
A document of Section VI; three film strip images and sprocket sets, one within another.
1973-1974, 16mm, color/si, 22m, $65
Contains: 1. Specimen II 2. Specimen III 3. Specimen IV 4. Diagonal Temporality B 5. Diagonal Temporality C 6. Temporal Frame B
Like ANALYTICAL STUDIES I, these short works each develop a different rhythmic and/or melodic idea using only rapid successions of color frames. The "Specimens" are called such because they are the "subjects" of (rephotography) analysis: "Specimen II" was intended to be the subject for the film EPISODIC GENERATION - although the footage, in itself, was successful, I did not find it adequate for its intended purpose; therefore, "Specimen IV" was created and was used (rephotographed) for EPISODIC GENERATION. The other works were studies for sections of the film DECLARATIVE MODE. (After titles, focus should be shifted to sharpen the edges of the screen.)
Note: All of the above films in the ANALYTICAL STUDIES SERIES may be projected at silent speed as well as sound speed.
1975-1976, 16mm, color/si, 15m, $45
"Beauty shall be convulsive." - Andre Breton
Produced with the aid of a CAPS Award (1978). Sound portion made possible by the facilities of the Computer Science Center at Carnegie Mellon University and ZBS Foundation (through funding by the New York State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts).
The films are of two patients, extracted from a medical film study of brain wave activity during seizures. Of course, the patients volunteered for these tests. The black and white footage of each patient entering convulsive stages was temporally and tonally articulated on an optical printer and rhythmic pure color frames were added to these images. Everything was done to allow the viewer to move beyond mere voyeurism and actually enter into the convulsive state, to allow a deeper empathy for the condition and to also, hopefully, experience the ecstatic aspect of such paroxysm.
1976, 16mm, color/so, 30m, $90
A series of tail ends of varied strips of film, with sometimes recognizable images dissolving into light flares, appear to run through and off of a projector. A romantic "narrative," suggesting an "ending," is inferred.
Note: This film may be projected at either silent or sound speed.
1976, 16mm, color/si, 3m, $20
The visual "degeneration" of the image ... through successive rephotography is paralleled by the compression of verbal information to the point of its loss of legibility; yet, both the "degenerated" sound and image are perceptually engaging, even in the most advanced stages of "degeneration." It is obvious why the film has its title, because of the strategies of its coming into being, but, paradoxically, at the level of effect, its dynamics arise from its "Episodic Degeneration."
1978, 16mm, color/so, 30m, $90
Special thanks to: Mary Ann Bruno (actress); Susan Mann (voice); Robert Franki (simulation of rattlesnake sound); Ken Rowe (sound production assistance); and Steve Gallagher (visual production and general assistance). In Part 1 there is an image of a moving strip of film, showing sequences of a close-up of a match being waved somewhat agressively in front of a young woman's apprehensive face. The soundtrack: occasional match striking and rattlesnake warnings and the words, "Look, I won't talk." ... The second part is the first part rephotographed .... In Part III we see the rephotographed image of Part II, which contains Part I, so it is a film of a film (of a film of the original film) ....
The film is "about" the fragility of the film medium and human vulnerability; both the filmic and the human images resist threat/intimidation/mutilation: the victim is defiant and the film strip also struggles on, both "under fire." It is a somewhat violent drama but it is also an ironically comic work and there is a formal beauty in the destructiveness of the burning film. While the film (from section to section) develops, becomes more visually complex, successively regenerates (as the figurative images degenerate), it nevertheless implies not finality; rather, 3RD DEGREE implies endurability, extension and on-goingness.
1982, 16mm, color/so, 24m, $75
Two reels of mis-takes in shooting Part II of 3RD DEGREE. Film was loaded in camera improperly and the image slides about off-center and becomes blurred - creating some rather amusing and mysterious imagery. A made "found" object.
1982, 16mm, color/si, 5m, $20
This film is a "chronicle" of a visit I made in 1977 to Romania to experience three of Brancusi's most famous sculptures: "The Endless Column"; "The Gate of the Kiss"; "The Table of Silence"; (and the lesser known "Arcade of Pedestals," the modular system of stools which lead from the "Gate" to the "Table"). These works are in the small, rural town of Tirgu Jiu, not far from the village of Hobitza (where Brancusi was born and spent his childhood). These works are shown in photographs and discussed as totally autonomous "abstract" sculptures simply placed conveniently around the town; but, in fact, they are also parts of a larger and very specific environmental (and symbolic) motif. Their placement suggests a metaphysical continuum; they span the boundaries of the town and while aligned in a (virtual) straight line, all three cannot be seen from any single point of view, so there is a temporal unfolding as one moves through the town to experience the relationship.
"There should be other films like this about works of art." - Lynda Benglis, Sculptor
1977-1984, 16mm, color/so, 23m, $70