It was only recently that I discovered the most exciting of all forms of referential collage, where reference itself becomes liquified into a stream of pictorial metamorphoses. When directing A TV Dante I found the self-framing technique (used for example in pictures like the Berlin Wall and in the series of Composers) which has been a consistent feature of my work since the sixties had quite a new potential of holding the most varied material in a fluid unity. In the editing process when tapes of all kinds and qualities are united both with the specially filmed material and pieces of information rostrumed on the spot, a seamless parade of juxtapositions in motion can be achieved. The impetus that builds up in this compulsive activity is a heady experience: collage narrative gives way to collage exegesis and modes shift through the elegiac, the heroic, and back again via the erotic, the sensual or the drily informational. A TV Dante (Cantos I-VIII) epitomises the development of collage in its electronic phase. It is no accident that sophisticated graphic computers use in their menus words like 'stick', 'cut', 'paste' etc.  > >

Works and Texts (1992), p. 119-123.

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