area rugs
michael snow wavelength
p in 1966 at the height of minimal art in new york artist michael snow chose not to make another object to be placed in a room but instead spent a year planning a film of a room wavelength a forty five minute more or less straight line zoom from the near to the far wall of a loft space accompanied by a rising sine wave . in this illustrated study elizabeth legge describes wavelength as a film of virtuosically managed tensions sensuous beauty subtle light and color and recession into perspectival depth . at the same time she points out it is also austere the loft space where the action unfolds could be the last clerical outpost of a defunct business . the zoom is punctuated by what snow laconically called 4 human events a woman directs two men who carry in a bookcase and place it against the left wall of the room ; two women come in and listen to the beatles strawberry fields on the radio ; a man briefly appears after protracted crashing and glass breaking noises wheels around and drops dead ; a young woman comes into the room and makes a frightened telephone call reporting the dead man and he doesnt look drunk he looks dead . . wavelength won the grand prize for experimental film at knokke le zoute in 1967 and it was crucial to critics efforts to establish a vocabulary for temporal art . it was a wavelength that could stand up to the french new wave and it has has functioned ever since as a touchstone for art and film studies and as a blue screen in front of which a range of ideological and intellectual dramas have been played .