Mysterious particles are showering down on me. They pierce my eyes, they traverse my body. They emanate not from the outer space, but from the screen I sit in front of. What is not supposed to be part of a film becomes the material of my fascination. A much more radical science fiction story is taking place, right here, on the very surface of these films we thought we knew.

Imagine, you’re sitting in a train, watching the landscape moving by. You see the trees, the grass, the roads, the sky, the clouds. But then it starts to rain and as the rain is hitting the window you start to become aware of it. The focus of your eyes shift from the landscape beyond the window to the window itself. The shift of focus is also a mental shift transporting us from the content of a view to the mechanics of viewing itself. 

Like the raindrops on a windowpane so too are the particles, the dust and dirt, the scratches and creases on this film material shifting my attention away from the supposed content of a film to the film material itself. These particles, considered distracting from and of no importance for the film we watch, they can become the film’s true objects of fascination.

This video essay is inspired by the radical engagements with film materiality of Carolee Schneemann, Stan Brakhage, Peter Tscherkassky, and Jen Proctor. And it is dedicated to Joseph Popper and his work on how outer space reconfigures our imagination.