The work was created between 1950 and 1957 on 16 mm colour film. Dr. William Moritz describes the film like follows: ‘Yantra (1955) is named with the Sanskrit word for “holy machine,” either a meditational device, like a mandala, or the great clockwork order of the universe. The film consists entirely of dot patterns – dots, like atoms, are the building-blocks of creation – that were punched into thousands of 5×7 cards with a pin, over a five-year period. James hand-developed the film, and solarized some portions for texture and exotic colors. The images enact a revelation of some primal mystery, a fascinating dynamism of seething, flickering particles that boil up to a climax of shattering vigor: creation laid bare. Then they implode with a dizzying entropy.‘ [1]

[1] http://www.iotacenter.org/visualmusic/articles/moritz/whoswhitney