Man Ray

Dadaist Man Ray’s The Starfish depicts a young couple, played by French model Alice Prin and André de la Riviere. Almost all of the scenes are shot either off a mirror, or through what appears to be diffused and textured glass. Ray used a gelatine dry-plate process to achieve the effect of textured glass and render the spectral images of the film like a drawing or rudimentary painting.  

In the short silent film Return to Reason, American dadaist Man Ray filmed barely recognisable night scenes in Paris. The almost total abstractions, such as enigmatic photograms and conglomerations of spiraling or spinning objects, seem devoid of meaning or purpose.