Zorns lemma

Duration: 60

Year Published: 1970

Creator: Museum of Modern Art

Format: 16mm

Color: Color

Sound: sound

Description: This film takes its title from set theory where it seems that every partially ordered set contains a maximal fully ordered subset. It uses the alphabet and mathematical systems to structure the film which becomes, in Frampton's words, a cryptic autobiography. Divided into three sections, the film begins with an imageless reading of the Bay State Primer. In the second section, the longest of the three, a series of shots of different street signs, each one second long, is gradually replaced by worldless imagery. In the third, a medieval text on light is read rhythmically by various voices, recapitulating in sound the regular editing rhythms of the second section, while a long, static landscape scene is seen. Described variously as a personal autobiography, an encyclopedic ordering of images from nature and civilization, and a partial recapitulation of film history, Zorns lemma invites the viewer to participate in the identification and naming of each image.