Horizontes, 2013
Still 'Horizontes', Miguel Aparicio
Along with mechanical and magnetic, optical is one of the three analogue sound recording systems and the one that has been most frequently applied in cinema, though magnetic is also widely used. Its biggest advantage is that the soundtrack is on the same support as the celluloid, to one side of the strip of film. That means that it never goes out of synch with the image. It is converted from electrical impulses collected by photocells that modulate the light beam, etching black marks on the celluloid that correspond to peaks and valleys.
The process shows us that in film, in other words on celluloid, sound is also image. Miguel Aparicio takes this premise and probes it by filming the horizon line in his hometown. The peaks and valleys between the various buildings on the skyline are profiled and duplicated upside down, arriving at marks similar to those drawn by a photocell.
