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Zen for Film
Sitting still staring at a wall
Even if you do not know anything about Zen Buddhism, you have probably seen at some point, maybe on a film or a TV series, someone doing zazen. Zazen—literally “sitting meditation”—is a meditative practice in which you sit facing a wall and try to stop thinking, forgetting the self. Some say it is not meditation in the strict sense of the word, but rather simply sitting, or sitting still like a mountain.
Watching a film implies also sitting still in front of a wall—the screen—and trying to stop thinking. Obviously, a film is not an empty wall, it is a wall in which a lot of things happen. While watching a film, we may forget about the self, but the images and sounds will trigger many thoughts and emotions. Films are not about feeling nothing, they are about feeling everything. But what if the film was really empty, as if you were literally staring at a wall?
In 1964, Nam June Paik released an empty film: Zen for Film. This 16mm film is just a roll of transparent film, without sound, projected on a loop. The only thing you see on the screen—or wall, as it is usually shown at museums, not at film theatres—is the light passing through the film. It is like staring at nothing, like looking at a wall. This may sound like pure asceticism, non-cinema or the negation of cinema, but it is quite the opposite. Zen for Film is a film in constant evolution that captures its surroundings. You can see, among other things, the dust particles that have adhered to the film and the scratches provoked by the inner mechanisms of the film projector. The footsteps, voices, and coughs from the public create the soundtrack.
The idea of using a void to reveal the environment comes from John Cage’s reflections on silence, especially the sound piece 4’33” (1952), which demonstrates that silence, or nothingness, does not exist. Even when we are not seeing or hearing anything, we are seeing and hearing something. On the other hand, the influence of Zen and the Buddhist concept of emptiness—Śūnyatā—is also obvious.
Śūnyatā is a philosophical concept usually translated as “emptiness”, but it does not mean nothingness or a negation of existence. It refers to the fact that everything in existence only exists to the extent that it is interrelated with the rest of the universe.
No Film for Film
Almost 20 years after Zen for Film, Kurt Kren shot a film that was also empty: 42/83 No Film (1983). This piece is not transparent and infinite, as Paik’s one, it is black and really short, it lasts just three seconds. In brief, it is a silent film that consists only of its measure of time—it shows a still black image followed by three titles.
The three seconds of black in 42/83 No Film are, like those in Zen for Film, absence, but also presence. After all, we are still arguing if black is a colour, the absence of colour or a suspension of vision generated by the lack of light.
Kren was asking himself what a film is and what is not at a time when he was anguished because he was no longer making films. He did not have any money, so he had to search for a job. When he got a job, he did not have the time or energy to make more films. Then he started asking himself: “No film?”, and some other questions arose. Can a static image be a film? Can an empty film be a film? Can three seconds be a film?
These two films are nothing, but they are also something. They are empty, but they are also full. They are the void, but they mean infinite possibilities because where there is nothing, there is room for everything. Both films have the potential to reveal any image, just as, as Cage claimed, silence has the potential to reveal any sound. However, unlike Zen for Film, 42/83 No Film is not heir to Cage and his ideas influenced by Eastern philosophy. Kren does not seek mystical or transcendental connotations, but rather a reflection on how we categorise and label reality in order to fit it into supposedly objective parameters that are always subjective.
If “cinema” means “motion pictures” or “moving record”—etymologically it means that—, 42/83 No Film is not cinema because it is static. If by “cinema” we mean the medium of film, a film strip divided into frames, 42/83 No Film is cinema, but any film recorded on video, analogue or digital, would not be cinema. If by “cinema” we mean a wider definition that would imply a narrative, certain duration, etc. 42/83 No Film is not a film either. But if it is not a film, then what is it?
The Territory before the Map
The Greek atomists claimed that nothing exists except particles and emptiness, everything else is an opinion. Films are made up of particles—frames, electrical signals, zeros and ones—and the space between them. The film we see is an opinion, an illusion.
Nothingness is reality without interrelation, without conceptualisation, the territory before there is a map. Zen for Film and 42/83 No Film use this idea to question and pervert how cinema and visual arts create maps of reality.
Zen for Film is a nothingness that generates a film by interrelating with its environment. 42/83 No Film is a nothingness that generates a film by framing itself on a film strip. Although they emerge from different intellectual and aesthetic positions, both confront the information overload of contemporary culture and how standard cinema maps our world. A world that we tend to think of as continuous and perpetual, but which in reality is rather discrete and fleeting.
Although Kren’s film does not arise from Eastern philosophy, as I already said, it has something to do with the Japanese concept of mono no aware. This idiom, which means the “pathos of things”, conveys the idea that everything in this life is transitory and impermanent. Sooner or later, everything passes. 42/83 No Film is so short that if you sneeze you miss the film. You may argue that, on the contrary, Zen for Film, being a loop, is eternal, but if you left a film projecting in a loop it would eventually disintegrate. This is where the beauty of things lies. If something were everlasting, we would cease to find it interesting at some point. Everything derives from nothing and towards nothing. But nothingness only exists to the extent that it is interrelated with the rest of the universe, and when you are interrelated, you are not nothing anymore.
Watch: A bit of psychogeography
This is footage from the Schwebebahn (“flying train”) in Wuppertal, Germany. I’ve read that this is the oldest elevated railway in the world.
Two filmmakers—Bette Gordon and James Benning—travelling by car from New York to Los Angeles. It’s not as old as the other one, but it’s from 1975, so it’s also a walk through the past.
Read: Women (also) make music
A short text about female filmmakers and musicians that… Read it on the CCCB website and then let’s talk about why many people assume that we, women, started making films and music recently. There have always been women doing this and that, the problem was—and still is—that historians only talked about men.
It’s been a while and I don’t know when I’ll have the time and the energy to write again, let’s hope that it’ll be soon. If you find this interesting, please share it.
If you don't have a precarious job and feel generous, you can contribute more actively, which in this capitalist society means “we all need money to pay the rising rents”.
You can find most of my artistic work at null66913 and my last album at Bandcamp. I’m more a filmmaker than a musician, but I haven’t made any films lately. Some of my films and albums are available to buy on Payhip. You can also find me on Twitter.
Wherever, whatever, have a nice day :)