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could be shaped, both in space and in time, using film as the medium. I conceived
Line Describing a Cone
in the mid-Atlantic, two and a half days out of Southampton, when Carolee [Carolee Schneemann, with whom McCall lived from 1971 to 1976] and I moved to New York. This was January 1973. I made the film in August.
MacDonald:
I usually show
Line Describing a Cone
at the front of a movie theater, across the space, so that it makes a specific reference to the normal projection situation.
McCall:
It was designed to be shown in an empty room, at an independent film showcase like the London Co-op or the Collective in New York or in a museum space or gallery. And always in an empty space, free of chairs.
There was never a showing of the film where it was necessary to do more than make a simple announcement, something like, "This film asks to be viewed in a rather unusual way. You'll find out the best way for you to look at it, but I recommend that to start with, you stand where there would normally be a screen, looking back toward the projector." People who weren't expecting this would be intrigued, annoyed, whatever, but usually they did what I suggested, and then, after ten or fifteen minutes, they'd be finding their way to look at it.
MacDonald:
On one level, the film is a product of serious, analytical thinking about the structure of film exhibition. On another, it's close to a spiritual experience. Are some presentations of
Line Describing a Cone
particularly memorable for you?
McCall:
I love
Line Describing a Cone
. I saw it for the first time in Sweden. Carolee and I had been invited to Fylkingen in Stockholm to do performances: I was still doing my fire performances at that time. I picked the film up at the lab the day I was leaving, threw it into the suitcase as I left, and had it tucked under my arm when I arrived in Stockholm. I hadn't seen it. I told people there about the film, and they arranged a screening. None of us knew what to expect, really. There was a polite audience of about thirty people. The room was darkened, the projector turned on, and the film began. I was astonished, mostly by the physical beauty of the shape that came into being. The film did all the things that I wanted it to do. I had anticipated that the audience would go about looking at it in a way that was quite different from looking at a picture on a screen. And I had expected to see a light beam shaped in space. But all that I'd expected seemed less important than what was going on in the room: the physical event seemed bigger than the idea. I was rather awed by it.
I suppose
Line Describing a Cone
achieved its most perfect scale for me when, after seven or eight screenings in friends' houses or in screening rooms like Artists Space in New York, a joint presentation was