Hy Hirsh Statements and Notes on the Films

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Filmography – Biography – Bibliography – Statements – Exhibitions/Awards – Photography – Personal

Hirsh’s films include abstract animation loosely synched
to jazz; complex optically printed collages of multi-plane animation (Hirsh
built his own optical printer), using scratched and painted-on techniques,
split screens, oil wipes, oscilloscope imagery and found footage.

Gyromorphosis strives to bring into actuality
the inherent kinetic qualities seen in the construction-sculpture of Constant
Nieuwenhuys of Amsterdam. To realise this aim I have put into motion,
one by one, pieces of this sculpture and, with colored lighting, filmed
them in various detail, overlaying the images on the film as they appear
and disappear. In this way I have hoped to produce sensations of acceleration
and suspension which are suggested to me by the sculpture itself.

-Hy Hirsh, from Articulated Light program notes

A film-collage abstraction of images reflected on the water of Amsterdam canals. Much importance is given the role of the camera, for the entire conception, the composition, the ‘montage,’ the blending and superimposing of images are all accomplished in the camera. In this way I believe I have found means for furthering the evolution of the camera as a creative instrument.

Much emphasis is placed on continuity and fluidity of motion. The whole film is in one ‘scene’ without a single moment of darkness. In AUTUMN SPECTRUM movement is a dominant element, though nostalgia is the real theme of the film. The colored patterns and their peculiar movements as reflected in the canals of Amsterdam and the resultant tranquil satisfaction are the stimulants for this project.

-Hy Hirsh on Autumn Spectrum,
from catalog for 1958 International Experimental Film Competition, organized
by the Royal Film Archive, Brussels

Hirsh was steeped in the laboratory practices
of both still and motion photography, and in San Francisco, far from the
photographic laboratories of Los Angeles, he built an optical printer
to do his own special effects, matting and color printing processes. Hirsh
also made pioneering use of oscilloscope patterns — images filmed from
a special kind of cathode-ray tube used in technical work — as a source
of abstract figures in his films such as Eneri and Come Closer.
These films were created by running black and white film transcriptions
of oscilloscope patterns through several passes on the optical printer
using superimposition and color filters. Both his source material — direct
electronic transcriptions of physical phenomena, and his method of altering
these images in the optical printer, represented enormous advances in
creative film-making.