"With Photos..."1975

contains five separate sections: 1) Several black and white photos are seen, loosely stacked on top of each other so that their contents are not visible. 2) The photos are passed from a hand at the bottom of the frame to a hand at the top. 3) Someone places a photograph face down on a sheet of white paper, draws round its edge, removes the photograph and, with a ruler, draws a rectangle inside the rough outline of the print. This is repeated several times. A voice-over lists what is, one assumes, the contents of the photos, e.g., "There's one here of a few cars that was taken outside the door," "There's one here of the front of the building," "There's one here of a language diagram and a magnifying glass." Listing the contents finishes before the drawing, but the voice continues to enumerate a series of dates, e.g., "April fourth", "February eighteenth." 4) A hand draws round several photos on a contact sheet, while a voice-over declares, "The self-restructuring of a system is not the same as restructuring by an external force. It is not teleology, or purpose, but telenomy, or the appearance of purpose." 5) Again the photos are passed across the frame, but this time, since we have already had a verbal description of them, perhaps we recognize them. -David James, "Six Films by Ken Feingold"