Dan Graham
Helix/Spiral, 1973
Film installation
2 films, 16mm, transferred from Super-8-films,
color, silent, synchronous projection
on 2 opposite walls
2 min 33 sec (loop)
Edition 1/10 + 2 A. P.
A stationary inner cameraman slides the back end of his camera while
pressing it flat against his body; it moves in a gradually descending helix
from eyes to feet so the entire surface area of his body is topologically
covered. As the camera rotates, circumscribing the body, it films the outside
360 degrees of the surrounding space. At each moment and point on the
body the specific angle of the body’s contour determines the camera’s
plane or angle of orientation; each second it is filming the light reflected
from the particular environmental plane facing parallel to the camera’s
front plane, while the other, obverse, side of the filmed exterior is the
negative, the cylindrical hole is the larger 360 degree topology wholly occupied
by that person’s body.
At a distance on the horizon of the inner filmmakers’ view, a second
filmmaker with camera’s viewfinder to his eye walks inward in a gradual
spiral whose center is the position of the first filmmaker. In walking he
maps in his spiraling the complete topographic surface area in 360 degrees between
the inner performer and his initial distance. He reaches the point of
the inner filmmaker when this performer has taken his camera to feet or
ground-level. The outside man’s aim is to continuously center his camera
on the inside camera while continuously having himself centered in the
view of that camera. To achieve this as he spirals, he adjusts his forward
movement relative to the rate with which the inside cameraman manipulates
the camera around his body. (Dan Graham)
GF0003311.00.0-2002
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