Everyone knows that cutting involves the substitution of one image by another. But what happens at the exact moment this replacement takes effect? With motion pictures, the changeover is so fast indeed that it is almost impossible to arrest the transition and reflect on what is going on. One way to access the event, though, is to imagine a presentation much in favor in art history classes. First you project a slide of a painting and discuss it, then, using a second projector, you show just next to it a second painting. It really matters little whether we have two works by the same artist, two different painters, even two different schools or art periods, the introduction of a new image next to the old one transforms one's experience of the situation and alters the discussion that follows. Let us explain: a single image grabs the attention. Even if the aesthetic forms within it point outward, they do not go very far for there is no welcoming committee out there on the wall. However much they may attempt to escape the confines of the frame, the image remains solidly where it is and it is thus toward it, in the end, that our comments are directed. Regardless of what it represents, the picture puts forth a single world. But as soon as you project another image, the situation changes radically. Not only has a second world opened itself for our perusal, the first one ceases to be what it once was. Let us emphasize the point: even though what we have on the wall are two monads, two self-contained, apparently
