Selected Treecuts

Running 6m and made in the United States, Selected Treecuts (1980) is an Animation film in the 123movies catalog. Steina Vasulka directs. “Selected Treecuts” is a formal examination of the distinction between camera-generated and digital images, and a layered juxtaposition of contrasting representations of reality. The methodology of the tape is simple: a zoom lens moves slowly in and out on a group of trees, alternating between digitized and camera-generated, “real” images. The movement in the tape is produced by the automated zoom lens and rotating prism; the images switch rhythmically between camera images and digital images held briefly in computer memory. The contrast between the “real” camera images of trees and the frozen, digital computer images forms an essay in motion and stillness, the organic and the synthetic, tracing a trajectory from the photographic to the electronic.