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Video

Sequential Images

I have been working with sequential images since the late 1960's, and taught a fine-art photography course called Sequential Images at Goddard College in 1970. As an art form, sequential images can be thought of as a variant of film or video, but although one can certainly think of film and video as a sequence of still images, the process of creation has become emphatically motion-oriented. The work I have been pursuing takes a different approach: images are selected based on their individual qualities, and are sequenced according to the specific aesthetic effect produced. In some cases, lap dissolves between images produce a strange (and sometimes wonderful) illusion of motion, while somehow allowing the brain to remain confident that nothing is actually moving.

There is a subtle but powerful difference in the subliminal effect on consciousness when viewing a purely unmoving image (e.g., from a slide projector), as compared to a supposedly still image in a film or video presentation. In both film and video, both flickering and gate motion prevent the viewer from experiencing absolute stillness of the image. In a slide, the light is constant, and the image is rock-steady. Unfortunately, multiple-slide-projector cross-fade presentations, which were quite popular from the 1960's through the 1980's, are no longer practical. Fortunately, high quality and high frame-rate video is becoming more accessible, and software for generating ultra-smooth cross-fades is readily available.

My original work in sequential images is no longer available, or there is no way to present it properly anymore, but my recent work has begun to bear fruit in the grey area between computer-based slide show tools and computer-based video and FX editors. Rather than stream those works myself, I will be posting them on vimeo.com as they become finalized.

Threnody

The first sequential image production is Threnody, an homage, of sorts, to Samuel Beckett and his most famous dramatic work, Waiting for Godot. It can be viewed in medium HD (720p) on Vimeo. Hopefully it will become practical to provide it at full 1080p in the near future, as the photography depends rather heavily on a large, sharp image. 4K would be even better...