Ernest Gusella at EPFC 11/9

Thursday nights at the Echo Park Film Center are often a treat, finding something that you haven't seen or didn't know and then instantaneously becoming quite fond of it. Last Thursday EPFC featured a selection the works of Ernest Gusella from the 1970's. How Gusella'’s work had slipped by me in the past, I am not sure. The 17 or so works screened were charming funny and a bit magical. Often that which is high tech a few years ago quickly loses its charm today, but I imagine that Gusella's tapes are as fun as they were when they were produced in the New York art-tech era of The Kitchen, if not quite as radical to the viewing audience. Of particular note were two pieces: Exquiste Corpse and Iris. Both utilized a play of the eye produced by a home manufactured switiching device rapidly cutting between perfectly aligned alternating color and black and white sources. The effect was an optical illusion of video containing another video without subdividing the frame.