Sunset to Sunrise

1969

Dir. Dan Graham, 16mm Color

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Description

The film is made by continuously moving a 16mm movie cmaera from a position oriented toward the sun on the horizon line at the moment of sunset, and procedding in a slow spiral with gradual upward inclination toward the top of the sky. The next morning at sunrise from the same geographical site, beginning at the top, center of the sky, a reverse spiral downward in opposite right to left roation is filmed, ending on the sun rising above the horizon.The sun's light is simultaneously the point source of illumination defining the surrounding 360 spatial (presence) and for the mechanical appearance of the film (document). The (spatial) presence illuminated is also the distance from teh presence of the camera to the presence of the clsest surface (placed in front of the camera's lens - reflecting its frontal orientation at each moment) reflecting light back to the film in the camera. As the camera is hand-held it also reflects teh filmmaker's body axis of 360 movement relative to the surrounding 360 space it documents (which the camera's image reflects). For the spectator viewing the film, the continuous movement in time read kinesthetically is correlated to the identity of the filmmaker.