To Lavoisier, Who Died in the Reign of Terror

As a material, film is subject to constant change. In archives, this change is documented via condition reports, which are produced when film prints are checked. In this series, filmmaker Juan González shares his personal moments of discovery during his work as a print checker at the Arsenal archive. Most films are produced according to standardized, industrial criteria with respect to quality and exhibition with the goal of reproducing the world as faithfully as possible. This time, we turn our attention to a work that deliberately moves away from this illusion and brings the inconsistency of its own materiality to the fore. In Michael Snow’s TO LAVOISIER, WHO DIED IN THE REIGN OF TERROR, we are confronted with series of long shots, each of which captures a seemingly banal action. Yet this footage has been fundamentally altered by different chemical processes. The damaged images no longer represent reality, but rather reveal the medium of film as a alchemical mystery. (jg)