Transparence

The text and video excerpt below document the book by Philippe Langlois, Les cloches d’Atlantis, musique électroacoustique et cinéma archéologie et histoire d’un art sonore, éditions mf, Paris, first quarter 2012.

Another experimental film by the director Vic TOWAS, who continues in this cinematic essay his experiments in the universe of “direct film”, a painting technique carried out directly on the film stock with the aim of establishing different levels of audiovisual relationship linked to the parameters of morphology, resonance, colouring and flicker. The idea of an image tending towards sound and of a music tending towards the image pre-exists, unless, in the third part, the opposite is the case…
This abstract film, made with the help of a transparent glue applied directly onto the film stock, attempts to produce an impression of relief, and explores different textures and different movements. The rhythm of the images is closely linked to that of the music, which is not limited here to the sole role of accompaniment, but seeks to represent an exact sonic equivalent of the figure evoked.

Production: Service de la Recherche de l’ORTF (1962)

Music by Edgardo Canton

This information notice was co-produced with INA/GRM for the creation of the multimedia fresco – Artsonores – L’aventure électroacoustique, in the category Films produced by the Service de la Recherche de l’ORTF from 1950 to 1975.