Michael Snow: Wavelength

Submitted by Magenta on Wed, 02/03/2010 - 11:21

Editors' Picks

The U.K.-based publisher Afterall continues its excellent ‘One Work’ series of critical, yet accessible, book-length essays on significant artworks with this examination of Canadian artist Michael Snow’s experimental film, Wavelength. Since its release in 1967, Wavelength has become, according to Legge, “a beacon and touchstone of intellectualism in film”, but it is also an enigmatic and hypnotic film that challenges the limits of viewers’ perceptive powers (and, for some, their hearing…the film’s ‘soundtrack’ mainly consists of a rising and falling sine wave). Legge’s essay places the film within the context of Snow’s long career (he is now 81-years-old), as well as the times in which it was made, even going so far as to explain the significance of the artist’s use of the Beatles’ song, Strawberry Fields Forever, in the film. The release of the book is also timely, with a survey of Snow’s most recent film and video works screening at the Power Plant in Toronto until March 7, 2010.