Internal Systems1975

"In one of her more minimalist films, the viewer is presented with nothing but a blank monochromatic frame slowly shifting through various intensities of color saturation, flickering / shuttering repeatedly from light-to-dark (and back again) for a duration of 45 minutes. The only hint of information we have to navigate through this complex and difficult film is at the head and tail of the film, in the rolling text "credits" introduced as positive at the head of the film and negative at the end. Technical information such as film stock, film speed, film length, camera lens, shutter, projector, and a host of other data appear on the screen like hieroglyphs of some secret language to be decoded. Whether we know what this cybernetic schemata means or not, Internal System abandons us to the pure phenomenological ecstasies of cinematic temporality- the reveries of a radical filmic monochromism. At the end of the sojourn the titles repeat but in negative, as if the experience of their effects - purely visceral rather than analytical - offer no direct correlation to the mechanism they wield." -Sandra Gibson and Luis Recoder, Catalogue for the Independent Film Show 7th Edition, Naples, Italy

It seemed interesting to make a film that was concerned with no more than its own theory and mechanics as content of the film. Simultaneously, I was interested in logical structures, what the mechanics of logic were. In a recording system could it record its own process, expose its mechanics. A problem like trying to see the back of ones head. C.F.

4 sections of the same time in the same place. - C.F.