The college librarian raises her eyebrows when I tell her the stack of books I am taking out is to help me gather some thoughts on a monochrome white film. It is not so much the discrepancy between the volumes of printed matter and the minimum of information in the abstract work that amazes her. Rather, the idea that a blank screen can find an audience and even a critic evokes incredulous laughter. And when I explain the gist of my text to more willing ears, I am greeted with non-verbal cues not all that different: incredulity, mild scepticism and, once, firm dismissal. As if a blank film is a closed case from the start, one that doesn't or shouldn't require any further expenditure of words, and certainly no actual screening. What, I wonder, is so strange about a film showing 'nothing'? Why wouldn't we want to watch it?

The piece in question is, of course, Zen for Film (1962-64), Nam June Paik's famous,infamous, first (and rare) cinematographic work. A film with no script, no narrative,no sets, no actors, no sound, no camera, no montage - but with screen and projector,and most certainly on film. Zen for Film is an unexposed strip of film run througha projector, which produces a more or less white image on screen. The more the strip passes through the mechanism, the more it deteriorates and the more scratches, smudges and dust particles appear on the 'empty' screen. When Paik is present the original version can last up to twenty or thirty minutes, with the artist stationed immediately in front of the screen, silent and immobile, his back turned to