The Flicker

Tony Conrad's 1966 landmark of structural film, built entirely from alternating black and white frames.

Type: Film
Creator: Tony Conrad
Year: 1966
Subjects: Time Perception Form

Made on a $300 budget, Tony Conrad’s The Flicker is built, past its opening credits, entirely from solid black and white frames alternating at varying rates — no camera image at all — producing stroboscopic effects Conrad conceived out of his own study of experimental psychology and flicker-induced hallucination, alongside Brion Gysin’s contemporary Dream Machine. Thirty minutes long, it became a landmark of American structural filmmaking.