Arno Gutleb

My Hand Outstretched to the Winged Distance and Sightless Measure is a film cycle by American avant-garde filmmaker Robert Beavers. It consists of eighteen films in three parts. The films were made from the late 1960s through the early 2000s in different European countries. Most of the works in the cycle are radically re-edited, condensed versions of the original films. The cycle premiered in its entirety in 2005.

This magnificent landscape, both hot and dry, is far from sterile; rather, the heat and dryness produce a distinct type of life, seen in the perfect forms of the wild grass and seed pods, the herds of goats as well as in the naked figure. The torso, in itself, and more, the image which it creates in this light. The sounds of the shepherd’s signals and the flute’s phrase are heard. And the goats’ bells. Imagine the bell’s clapper moving from side to side with the goat’s movements like my quick side-to-side camera movements, which increase in pace and reach a vibrant ostinato.