CONDITION OF ILLUSION

11 films by Peter Gidal

from 1967 to 2013

DVD9 PAL Interzone, mono, 4:3, colour/b&w , 174 min.

Clouds, 1967, 10 '

Focus, 1971 7 '

Upside Down Feature, 1967-1972, 62 '

Epilogue, 1968 9 '

Guilt, 1988 40 '

Flare Out 1992, 15 '

Assumption, 1997, 1'30

No night No day, 1997 14 '

Coda I, 2013, 2 '

Coda II, 2013, 2 '

Bonus: Room (Double Take), 1967 10 '

It’s upside down, inside out, negative, reversed — as though Gidal had cranked all the navigational tools of his medium to their absolute zero, and, in so doing, groped his way towards a spot that’s not on any map, some true, magnetic north of cinema itself. The viewer, held in this liminal space, this threshold, is by turns (or simultaneously) mesmerised, disoriented, captivated, frustrated and delighted. And we’re not just talking about cinema here: Upside Down Feature is awash with radios performing Cage-like trawls across their dials; with typewriters; static cameras; even Man Ray’s photos of the dust on Duchamp’s Large Glass. The leitmotif of clocks (their faces, naturally, flipped) is fitting: what we’re ultimately witnessing, perhaps, is a countdown, taking place on the far side of the screen, of all screens; the exhilarating spectacle of not just a medium but media tout court in a state of immanence, of almost-becoming.

-Tom McCarthy