Film Programme: Resonating Structures

Computer-generated 16mm film transferred to digital file, b&w, silent, 6 min 41 sec.
Collection Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Gift of the artist, 2015.

To Perceive 10,000 Different Squares in 6 Minutes and 55 Seconds, 1970 
Computer-generated 16mm film transferred to digital file, b&w, silent, 7 min 37 sec.
Collection Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Gift of the artist, 2015.

Before/After, 1970
Computer-generated 16mm film transferred to digital file, b&w, silent, 1 min 50 sec.
Collection Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Gift of the artist, 2015.

Inside/Outside, 1970
Computer-generated 16mm film transferred to digital file, b&w, silent, 1 min 40 sec.
Collection Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Gift of the artist, 2015.

Rotating Line, 1970
Computer-generated 16mm film transferred to digital file, b&w, silent, 1 min 26 sec.
Collection Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Gift of the artist, 2015.

Line, 1970
Computer-generated 16mm film transferred to digital file, b&w, silent, 1 min 16 sec.
Courtesy of the artist and Rossi & Rossi, Hong Kong.

Since the 1960s, Siah Armajani has explored the use of technology as a medium as well as in the intersection of art with science. In 1970, he produced a series of experimental films using a computer capable of printing on 16mm celluloid at the Hybrid Computer Laboratory, University of Minnesota. In these films he generated moving lines and shapes using mathematical formulae and computer programming to create the illusion of three-dimensional space and time on one-dimensional surfaces that ultimately point to the functionalism of space, a consistent thread in Armajani’s work.

Event is an explicit example of such a connection as it brings together the notions of architecture’s social space through texts, equations, and diagrams. To Perceive 10,000 Different Squares in 6 Minutes and 55 Seconds presents ten thousand squares, each in a single frame in descending order of size; with the illusion of a single square hovering in space.Before/After suggests spatial and temporal ambiguity, depicted by two synchronised animated representations of movements over time. Inside/Outside explores the function of boundaries and the concept of closed and open systems in a space. Rotating Line illustrates the blurring of dimensional states within a space through the transition of a single point into a line that subsequently appears to rotate in and out of the screen. In Line, Armajani reflects upon the inadequacy of painting and sculpture in expressing ideas through the most basic aesthetic form.

These six films will be played on loop during opening hours from 18 July to 17 November, 2019. During this time, a presentation of films by other filmmakers/ artists, grouped according to the themes Line Structure, Bridges, Houses, and Gardens, will also be shown in conjunction with Siah Armajani’s films.

A public programme of Siah Armajani: Spaces for the Public. Spaces for Democracy.