----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I have a question for those involved with experimental cinema. Frequently experimental cinema reaches a level of imagistic complexity -figuration, abstraction- not found elsewhere. For me this is one of the most rewarding parts of experimental cinema. Unfortunately this aspect of the work appears to be frequently ignored by viewers and by those individuals writing about the work. I wonder about the idea of visual competence. As I think we will agree cinema study has been dominated by narrative and thematic forms of analysis such as psychoanalysis, semeiotics, feminist theory, autre, genre, and cultural theory etc. It appears to me that methods of analyzing the cinema that emphasize visual competence, over narrative competence and that work on the level of the image, specifically the abstract image, do not exist. Is there a mode of analysis that I am not aware of? If so please suggest references. Further, for those who teach how do you present filmic abstraction to your students, what modes of analysis do you think are proper or useful? any thoughts? -Douglas Hunter