Either or Neither (Dan Barnett, 2021) (Patreon)

This is the third and final film in Barnett's "Sweet Dreamers" trilogy, a suite of feature-length experimental films. While I have not seen the second film, Substance Without Science, I think I can make some general remarks about the relation of Either or Neither to the first film, 2019's Science Without Substance. It should be noted that both films are remarkably dense, characterized not only by thick layers of superimposed imagery, but also a rapid-fire editing pace that (in another context) I referred to as "bombardment cinema." The fact that even the most attentive viewer cannot hope to absorb all of the signifiers in Barnett's film is, as they say, a feature and not a bug.

I should mention that both "Sweet Dreamers" films I've seen feature found-audio soundtracks, with snippets of film and TV dialogue alternating or overlapping with more abstract, digital emanations, a musique concrete tapestry almost as unremitting as the visual track. So this raises a question or two. Why would a filmmaker want to throw so much at a viewer in the first place? What are Barnett's films going for in terms of affect, or spectatorial engagement? Although this is not all they want, I would argue that the films intend to aggressively wear down our typical viewing habits. If we never stop trying to "make sense" of Either or Neither in the conventional way, it will probably feel like two hours of banging one's head against a spectacularly unforgiving wall. We have to approach it differently.

One way to grapple with these films is to allow them to wash over you. If you give yourself over to Barnett's work, your unconscious mind is likely to step up and do some heavy lifting. Despite your overstimulation, you are likely to observe patterns, rhythms, and poetic refrains. Given Barnett's interest in analytic philosophy and theories of consciousness, it hardly seems out of place to think of Either or Neither as a bounded model of human perception. When we encounter the world, we necessarily filter out millions of bits of available sensory information. We relegate certain perceptions to the realm of generalized patterns -- room, wall, chair, ground, sky, etc. -- so that we can fix our attention on those things around us that are changing and demanding our attention -- the person speaking to you, the car coming into your lane, the storm clouds assembling above. 

By contrast, works of cinema tend to perform a lot of this selection and prioritization for us. That's what directors do: they organize sensory information and direct our focus to certain salient details. By contrast, Barnett's films ask us to bring to them the usual psychological equipment we bring to the cinema (an assumption of a bracketed, predigested world), only to overwhelm us with as much "stuff" as a real-world encounter. In the process of being "lost," we are not only forced...er, invited to discover our own perceptual hierarchies; we cannot help but observe ourselves doing so. (And of course, since Either or Neither is still "just" a film, a mere model of mental perception, there are no consequences to being sensually overpowered, aside from mild to moderate frustration.)

But Either or Neither seems to be up to something else. In this film, Barnett gives us a protagonist of sorts. This woman appears onscreen more than any other figure, and at times she seems to be reading a fragmented newspaper, or moving through an ambiguous film-space traversed by lines, colors, and forms. Although one can't really call her a character, she is a natural point of identification. This, along with the preponderance of narrative-derived bits of dialogue on the soundtrack (from sources such as "Breaking Bad," "Mad Men," "CSI," and other dramas), suggests that Barnett is ever so slightly nudging us back into the world of narrative film. And this, in turn, suggests that whatever data we may have collected about our own nervous system while watching Either or Neither (and possibly the whole trilogy) are not just abstract things-in-themselves. We are supposed to bring that knowledge back into our ordinary lives -- which, as per Wittgenstein, is the real function of philosophical investigation.