Side Seat Paintings Slides Sound Film

In 1970 I had a large retrospective exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto. For this exhibition I composed/designed a largely photographic book called “A Survey.” This was the first of several works, which attempted to use previous work or the records of previous work as the material for new work. Starting with “raw” material that has already been formed by oneself on some other occasions for some other purposes is a very interesting thing. “Side Seat…” is a 20-minute sound film made in 1970 of the projecting and verbal (my voice) identification of slides (made at various times, by various people) of paintings in various media made by myself from 1955 to 1965. It is not autobiographical. The film is a recycling, a conversion which, by employing the illusion of temporal alteration that film and sound recording have made possible, becomes a completely new experience. (Michael Snow)