Criss Cross (1965)

Overview

"Back in the 60s my friend Duff Decker and I would swap sound tapes that we made at home from scraps of TV, radio, records, along with our own noises. Sometimes these would center on a theme but often they were simply pure sound structures. The track here is of the latter sort, a tape sent to me by Duff. It stirred me to consider setting images to it as a playful and irreverant bagatelle. I had found some commercial travel movies that were being thrown out, and I also had numerous 'outs' from my own film work. These are what I used. The sounds and pictures criss cross over one another. Duff’s sound track tape is made of oppositions and shifts that seem to have no logical sequence and my images largely do the same. Yet I tried to feel my way toward something that might achieve a meaning out of meaninglessness. An abstract flow of cohesive irrationality. A movie! Well, I’m happy with the outcome, but if you’re not, you can blame Duff. He started it." –Abbott Meader