Equal Time (1979)

Overview

In this work, the field of Hill’s experimentation is the synchronization of visual and linguistic elements. For Equal Time, he sets up a minimalist arrangement, whereby two identical panels with grid patterns, starting respectively on the left and right side of the monitor, slowly move across the screen against a black background to the opposite side. As the panels overlap they produce moiré patterns. Each is associated with the voice of a different speaker, whose voices emerge from the left or right stereo channel. As soon as the panels completely overlap, the words of the two texts merge and the two voices, now in unison, produce a phasing sound similar to the visual moiré pattern of the panels.