Nancy Graves

Explores as black and white abstraction the passage of motion picture film over a static surface comprised of two hundred-odd stills of the lunar surface. Film sequences are structured by camera motion over the field, by reversing the filmed image, by inversion of the static image, by the use of the zoom, the pullback, pan: from top to bottom and reverse, left to right and reverse. Seismic sound was created on an oscillator.–N. G.

"We have tried to achieve a multi-layered mobile space – if you will – by means of the disparate motion of overlapping forms in flight. The frigate bird and flamingo were selected for their distinct light profile and unique movement. The film frame is a translation of my drawings. Sequential structuring of related forms in flight establishes the flow of content. The frame is contained in and moves through a limited sky determined in each segment by the peculiarities of the flight. Flight motion empirically introduces a perimental illusion of space as well as an illusion of distance between the film surface and viewer."

In 1970 Graves made the first of five films. Each one was preceded by travel and research, and though the images are "representational", the films are fundamentally abstract in their exploration of color, light, form, and surface. She considered 200 Stills at 60 Frames and Goulimine, her earliest films about the camel, as study projects.

Nancy Graves statement, 1971: "Izy Boukir contains footage filmed in the Sahara during eighteen days. I wanted to extend sequences [from earlier films] and to a greater degree permit the animal motions to determine structure. An Arriflex [camera] was often positioned five to ten feet from the animals. In New York, partite animal forms were separated into two segments: as walking and as graduated motion. Through the edited sequential duration, camel morphology vies with the viewer's inherent anthropomorphism. For me this film is the most successful in that the impression of these animals as primordial beings existing in barren yet awesomely beautiful surroundings far outweighs a consciousness of complicated editing and sound relationships."

"...Filmed in the Sahara [...] Edited in New York at a ratio of ten to one, the movements of groups of animals in a camel market are related to establish a structural rhythm of body motions. I read Eisenstein. I ignored narrative and documentary possibilities. The sound was both wild and sync on four tracks. It augmented the visual opulence of the final footage." -N.G.