As a painter, sculptor, and writer, Marcel Duchamp greatly influenced 20th- and 21st-century conceptual art. His interest in the ‘fourth dimension’ is evident in his film Anémic cinéma, which consists of a series of spirals within spirals rotating in such a way as to create an optical effect—a classic of experimental cinema.

It is a sequence of static shots of a device devised by Duchamp that seems to parody the alternation of image and intertitle of silent film. The winding words comment on optical effects that generate depth, as it were, by returning the viewer to flatness. The messages, in French, contain puns, whimsical rhymes, and alliterations —the last message comments on the spiral motif itself.

The discs’ slow rotation causes swelling and shrinking, which lends erotic connotations to the puns and suggestive texts.