In 1976, Slobodan Pajic directed the first video produced by the audiovisual studios of the Centre Pompidou, entitled Destruction du Son et de l'Image.

Presented at the VIDCOM [1] during the Festival de Cannes 1976, it shows the successive destruction of various dark glass surfaces with the aid of metal balls. Initially, the glass plates were installed at forty-five degrees across the full length of a ledge, then arranged in various ways in the course of the sequences of destruction. These sequences almost systematically involve a powdery white substance that, when placed on or under the plates, serves as either their support or as decoration – although it is always an extremely sober form of decoration, taking for instance the form of a simple cross. The number and position of the plates varies with each new shot, without any particular logic of progression appearing to govern their arrangement. Confronted by an intriguing repetitive design without the slightest contextualisation, the spectator develops vague desires for interpretation, which these short scenes of destruction cannot thwart, owing to their arbitrary character. These scenes present the veneer of an experimental protocol, with a scientist attempting to exhaust their multiple combinations. The desire to throw the spectator off course is progressively felt as the surfaces are inverted: white powder positioned on or under the glass plate, a shot showing not a metal ball falling on a plate, but a plate falling on a metal ball. At times, the understanding of the filmic space is hard to grasp: Slobodan Pajic plays with the mirrored reflections in the glass plate, showing by the surface of the glass itself the hand holding the ball that breaks it, or fleetingly presenting a ball that appears to roll on the surface – we can no longer be sure at this point whether it is a ramp being reflected in the glass plate, or if it is the glass plate itself – before it abruptly strikes a vertical plane.

The period of waiting for the moment of impact, the obvious absurdity of the arrangement, along with a certain difficulty in apprehending the spatial layout place the spectator in a deeply uncomfortable position, which the treatment of the soundtrack reinforces. After each impact, an indeterminate rumble can be heard, with a volume that rises to the point of becoming slightly irritating: the sound of the following impact then interrupts it, allowing the spectator a few moments of respite. Slobodan Pajic thus generates a tension, which seems to be entirely directed towards the moment of impact of the metal ball on the glass: “Neither video technology or the spectator's eye are capable of recording the exact point of fracture and the transformation that remains invisible and elusive. So this is a fundamental confrontation between the breaking point that does not exist on screen and the one that inhabits the spectator's mind.” [2]

Destruction du Son et de l'Image thus represents the inevitably impossible quest for an instant in time: that of the transition from one form to another, the transition from arbitrary compositions produced with the aid of plates and white powder to a fragmented form that is equally as incomprehensible, consisting this time of shards of glass shattered by the metal ball. This concern for the recording of the transition from one state to another was later confirmed, in 1977, by the creation of a tape entitled Passage d'un Espace Fermé à un Espace Ouvert, featuring a system presenting numerous similarities with Destruction du Son et de l'Image: this time the metal ball destroyed glass balls filled with pigments.

Philippe Bettinelli

Translated by Anna Knight

[1] Marché International de la Vidéocommunication.

[2] Slobodan Pajic, cited par Nancy-Wilson Pajic, Slobodan Pajic, Casa de Cultura Salvador de Madariaggne, Centro Galego de Artes da Imaxe, 1994, p. 6. [Our translation.]