The Collected Writings of Michael Snow

La Région Centrale, 1969

46 The Collected Writings of Michael Snow thought. When Eye and Ear was first shown at the Cinematheque (Astor Playhouse '65) it was one of those riots with people throwing things at the screen. When the film was over I recall Gerard Malanga running up the aisle to the projector and saying, "That couldn't have been made in 1964!" Later Andy told me he thought the film was "wonderful" which pleased me very much. The differences are of course vast as well. When I started thinking, jotting notes for Wavelength, it occurred to me that it might be a little like Empire. It didn't come from there tho. The similarities are partly the background of our thinking which came from the issues of the painting world: Oldenburg, Jasper Johns, Duchamp. I like Screen Test and Poor Little Rich Girl and Juanita Castro very much. Brakhage: Scenes from Under Childhood is magnificent. Blond Cobra and parts of Ken Jacobs' unfinished The Sky Socialist. Kubelka. Parts of Jonas' Diary of Wendy Clarke's Wedding. I'm interested in doing something that can't be explained. Oh there are so many things to it. The frame by frame truth and the running together illusion. It's fast stills. Ultimately those events on the screen which really move me seem to be mysterious alterations of mind and time sense. Everybody makes different transferences of energy. One can feel the eyes of Kubelka in Unsere Afri­ kareise. His attention. Now I think this letter isjust as dumb. It's all in the work. Writing, talking:some other things. Yrs Michael Snow Abitibi m9 This text first appeared in the catalogue prepared by Anita Aarons for the exhibition Art for Architecture ­ The Wall, organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario in 1969. Take "Painting" off the Wall, have "Panel," make Panel big, have "Wall." Also thought of "Painting" as 2 dimensional skin usually applied to "Wall" or "Panel." In 1965 thinking above thoughts and a few others I made Morningside Heights ­ a free­standing equal sided plane. Mass on floor, then thinner (1/2 in.) verti­ cal plane, then transparent (no mass) "Window." Idea of free­standing planes being the result of equal, opposed pressures, producing stasis, 2 dimensionality verging on an interesting impossibility: 1 dimension, explored in recent "squeeze" pieces, espe­ cially Abitibi. Other forerunners Sleeve 1965 and large central wall with "removals" of 1967 stainless steel expo Walking Woman composition. Also First to Last 1966. All these examples are outgrowths of "Painting" but are both invented "Wall" and "Pic­ ture." Another precedent: Atlantic 1966. Abitibi is a totality in which the process, once set in motion, produced "natural" forms of unpredictable variety in relation to a "known" fixity, the rectangle. The result is a structure which is a record of the pro­ cess (both physical and conceptual), balancing and relating samples of "chaos" and "order." Two 4 ft. x 8 ft. x 1/2 in. plywood sheets, varnished, bolted together with greyed polyester resin between, resulting (when ooze hardened); two­sided, equal­ pressured, free­standing wall. 47 T The Photographic Component in Tap, 7969 (from the Collection of the National Gal­ lery of Canada) Tap is a "dispersed composition" finished in 1969 and now in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada. The following is the text part of the work ­ that is, it is a detail. However,it is a detail which has the unusual capacity to describe the otherparts of the work and its intention. This text was first published independently of the work in Michael Snow/Canada, the catalogue prepared by the National Gallery for the Venice Biennalein 1970. M.S. The "drumming" sound which you have heard, are hearing, will hear or perhaps won't ever hear I made by tapping my fingers against a microphone while moving it over the tape recorder to make a bit of feedback. I then made a loop of a selection from the resulting tape. There is a large blowup of a photograph of the above procedure which you may have seen or will see, etc. It's supposed to be hanging somewhere in this building.The tape and the photo were made in February 1969 and this is being typed on March 14, 1969. Joyce Wieland Snow and I took the photos with a Miranda 35mm camera, an 8" x 10" print from the selected negative was made...