> It is in fact 'Sleep' that we'll be showing in Austin, TX in October; I'm not
> hopeful that I'll be able to find two functioning 16fps projectors locally...
> I got an email from someone encouraging me to instead use four projectors, as
> it would cut the screening time in half.
So...Why two instead of one?
> Warhol would have been interested in the creative misuse of the apparatus,
> and in the footage being submitted to and deformed by norms enforced by
> mass-production and standardization.
Would it not be within the spirit of 'Sleep' then, not only to have the viewers
endure the wait for reel changes, but to rewind each reel and put it back in
the can before threading the next one? I mean, given the TRT and the aesthetics
of boredom, what's a few more minutes? I'd argue 'Sleep' is a performance art
piece based in creating a mind-fuck around 'what it means to watch a film',
which becomes about what different people in the audience at any screening DO
in response to the challenge of 'how am I supposed to engage this thing' when
faced with a work for which no existing conventions seem to apply, and which
offers no hints of what 'rules' viewers might apply to it.
Which poses a question of 'extra-textuality' for exhibitors – as in announcing
a screening and inviting an audience some set of expectations are set forth, if
only by the larger context of how the screening space or organization is framed
(we show avant garde films), or the most minimal of rubrics ("a film by Andy
Warhol"). That context would change if the screening was framed as a Happening,
and the audience had access beforehand to the idea I just presented (this is
about what different viewers do with it...). E.g. it's one thing if viewers are
cued to the idea that it might be more interesting to attend to what other
people in the audience are doing than to attend to what is or isn't happening
on screen, and another thing if they're left to discover that possibility for
themselves. But like everything about 'Sleep' I don't think there's a 'right'
answer.
Related random Factory-al thought: How about a screening where two bowls of
pills are placed on a table to one side of the screen, one containing Adderall
tabs, the other Klonopin? Thus other audience members could see who goes for
which pills and when...
Related random post-Factory-al thought: How about getting a couple of analytic
projectors and showing 'Sleep' as a Ken-Jacobs-Nervous-System thing that goes
slowly back and forth through the footage at different speeds and lasts, say, a
whole week 24/7??
And who says four projectors would cut the TRT in half? Why not have four
screens and just shuttle the reels from one to the next, still sequentially,
Friar Jacques style?
...But if you set up something like that as one of those f***ing museum
installation loops so it just went on and on forever without beginning or end
and with people coming and going at random points whenever the hell they wanted
to, THAT would heresy! HERESY, I say!... :-)
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