Editing Spiral Jetty (section)

==Film==
{{external media|width=210px|float=right|video1=[https://smarthistory.org/robert-smithson-spiral-jetty/ Smithson, ''Spiral Jetty'', 1970], [[Smarthistory]]<ref name="smarth A">{{cite web|title=Smithson, Spiral Jetty, 1970|publisher=[[Smarthistory]] at [[Khan Academy]]|date=|url=http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/earth-artsmithsons-spiral-jetty.html|access-date=February 28, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130304060235/http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/earth-artsmithsons-spiral-jetty.html|archive-date=March 4, 2013|url-status=dead|df=dmy-all}}</ref>|video2=[http://www.getty.edu/conservation/publications_resources/videos/focus/spiral_jetty_sunrise.html ''Sunrise over Spiral Jetty''], [[J. Paul Getty Trust]]<ref name="smarth B">{{cite web|title=Sunrise over Spiral Jetty|publisher=J. Paul Getty Trust|date=|url=http://www.getty.edu/conservation/publications_resources/videos/focus/spiral_jetty_sunrise.html|accessdate=February 28, 2013}}</ref>}}

In 1970 during the construction of the jetty, Robert Smithson wrote and directed a 32-minute color film, ''[[Spiral Jetty (film)|Spiral Jetty]]''.<ref name=film>{{cite web|url=http://www.robertsmithson.com/films/txt/spiral.html|title=Spiral Jetty, 1970 Film by Robert Smithson|work=robertsmithson.com|publisher=James Cohan Gallery|accessdate=November 6, 2012}}</ref> The film was shot by Smithson and his wife [[Nancy Holt]], and funded by Virginia Dwan and Douglas Christmas.

The film documented the construction process and also formed an ancillary artwork.  Smithson combines his interest in geology, paleontology, astronomy, mythology and cinema, stating that he had an interest in documenting "the earth's history".<ref name="Jetty109"/> In conjunction with filmed sequences of the jetty, Smithson incorporates footage of dinosaurs in a natural history museum and the ripped pages from a history text. During this scene, Smithson refers to the institutions of history: "the earth's history seems at times like a story recorded in a book, each page of which is torn into small pieces. Many of the pages and some of the pieces of each page are missing".<ref name=film/> Smithson's narrative supports an alternative view of historical discourse and the art object's placement or production outside of the museum institution. His writings also indicate that the helicopter film sequences over the jetty were a method of "recapitulating the scale of the jetty".<ref name="Jetty109"/> By visually disorienting the viewer, Smithson is able to negate a time and place for the materiality of the artwork or create what he calls a "cosmic rupture".<ref name="Jetty109">Smithson, Robert. ''The Spiral Jetty'', 1970, published in Robert Smithson: The Collected Writings, edited by Nancy Holt, New York University Press, pp. 109-113</ref> Through this state, the viewer is meant to be unable to categorize or classify the site, and will be left in a state free from the dialect of history.

The film has been described as Smithson's attempt to "leave the viewer with a sense that the monumental artwork is connected to a vast mental landscape of meanings and associations".<ref>Campagnolo. K. M. (2008). [[doi:10.1086/aaa.47.1_2.25435144|Spiral Jetty through the Camera's Eye]]. Archives of American Art Journal, 47(1/2), 16–23. </ref>