SUN IN YOUR HEAD

'Sun in your Head' (1963, Fluxus Film Anthology, Fluxfilm no. 23) images' have been directly captured from a television screen with a film camera. The film upsets the canon of the experimental film which then prevailed. The film is neither personal nor abstract, but refers to something entirely impersonal like a television programme. The artist also subverts the intention of the original film, transforming it into a cinematographic object. His distortions of and interfer- ences with the television screen not only include references to its physical structure— its support and its electronic components— but also examples of a wide range of television programmes that dominated the screen at the time. Pixilated newscasts appear against a background of a space capsule at sea: fragments of 'Magazin der Woche', a pro- gramme with various news items broadcast on German television. The video ends with a long, sophisticated montage of scenes from a documentary about American airborne troops during World War II: a succession of shots of pilots, dashboards, propellers, transformed by Vostell’s videographic interventions. (Berta Sichel)