Film

Vervielfältigung

1996 · 4m

William Sheldon's crackpot body typing, based on the superficially convincing fiction of universal endo-, ecto- and mesomorphic components of the human form, gave each person three numbers from 1 to 7, one for each of these three components, interpretable as coordinates of a point in a cubic parameter space. The result of decades of obsessive recording, his Atlas of Men contained standardized pictures of 1200 individuals, obvious animation fodder. Attending to fundamental cinematic concepts of cut, shot and motion, I employed a computer to reduce Sheldon's three dimensions to the one of time. Further programs turned the coordinates of bodily form into notes, giving endomorphy, ectomorphy and mesomorphy each their own voice. Thus each point in Sheldon's parameter space implies a type of human and, by my contrivance, a frame of film and a musical chord.

• James OtisDirector

Release date

January 1, 1996

Status

Released

Original language

English

Runtime

4m