In an interview with Tony Oursler, as part of Oursler's "Synesthesia: Interviews on Rock & Art", Tony Conrad said he moved to New York in the early 1960s and entered into the art picture because of his interest in music, but went to film because it was "too boring" in music. At the time, film was institutionally unattached, which drew Conrad towards the community of New York filmmakers. In 1966, he made his first film, "The Flicker", said to be a "landmark in structural filmmaking." Conrad said, "Since other filmmakers were making films at the time that dealt with structure as a foregrounded principle, and this seemed to be built around mathematical principles, it was adopted as a kind of flagship film for the structural film movement, where it dealt with abstract light-organizing ideas." The film consists of only completely black and completely white images, which, as the title suggests, produces a flicker when projected. When the film was first screened, several viewers in the audience became physically ill (rapid flashes produce epileptic attacks in a small percentage of population). Conrad wished to generalize the whole technology of film.