Central Avenue

Production Notes
1992

Photograph
20.5” X 24.5”

During the late 1970s and early 1980's I made a series of photographic and sculptural works that explored ways of representing a range of essential cinematic "ideas," outside of conventional cinematic grammar. I made paper films -- some of them found objects re-imagined -- photographic collages, assemblages of cardboard and other materials, and a wide range of other conceptual works, all in search of alternative ways of expressing my love of cinema without necessarily making (actual) films.

CENTRAL AVENUE is an enlargement of a strip of 16mm film, originally shot in 1976, as part of a series of short (and silent) black and white films I made titled, 4 CORNER TIME (1976). These short films are studies of the rhythms, the geometry, the graphic qualities, and the structure of traffic patterns taking place on one urban street corner.

The original filmstrip was shot on a 16mm Bolex camera that was controlled by an “intervalometer” – a device that allowed me to take one frame of imagery per second.