SIGHT/SEEING
An experimental documentary translating John Cage's 'As Slow as Possible' into a stretched, chance-driven gaze at Europe's most photographed spots.
John Cage composed "Organ2/ASLSP" to be played "As Slow(ly) as Possible." The piece could theoretically last forever. It currently can be heard in Halberstadt, Germany in a version that will ultimately be 639 years long. The experimental documentary SIGHT/SEEING translates the subject of "hearing" to one of "seeing."
How long can you actually look? How long can one endure the "stretched gaze" (Wilhem Genziano) while swiping through hundreds of images within seconds? At places such as Big Ben and the Eiffel Tower, where thousands of people take the same pictures over and over again, billions of times, what might you see if you dare to not turn your eyes? And what happens when a very stretched piece of music meets a very stretched gaze?
SIGHT/SEEING was made by filming at the most photographed tourist spots in Europe, but with each shot determined by chance operations (à la Cage) with the aim to "learn seeing at a place where there's nothing to see." The many clips that make up the film might include anything from a wall or slab of pavement, a passersby looking at their phones, to a bit of unfocused scenery somewhere near the Trevi Fountain in Rome.
In addition to Cage's music and the ambient sounds of each film clip's location, nine quotations from John Cage bring additional structure to the film. Most of them come from John Cage's seminal essay and lecture collection Silence , adding astonishingly apt comment on what is seen, though they have also been assigned to each section of the film by way of chance procedures.
SIGHT/SEEING takes the many inspirations Cage's work offers into the realm of experimental documentary to extraordinary result.
75 minutes