When looking back on the history of 20th-century art, very few can claim to surpass the influence of Marcel Duchamp. A leading pioneer who facilitated the development of conceptual art, Duchamp went against the trends of the contemporary art markets by championing anti-art and other subversive approaches to creativity.

For this edition of Short of the Week, we have highlighted the only film ever directed by Duchamp. Titled Anémic Cinéma, the 1926 experimental film is now seen as one of the most important additions to the history of avant-garde cinema. However, Duchamp was never interested in the cinematic medium.

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In an interview (via ArtNews), Duchamp said: "Cinema never interested me as an artist. That little film called Anémic Cinéma is the only one I ever made. I was interested in films as a means to express [another] dimension. As in the spinning roto-relief discs I experimented on with Man Ray in my studio in New York and in his studio in Paris."

Duchamp created this short by filming rotating cardboard disks with spirals and inscribed puns. To those who are familiar with Duchamp’s art, it is no secret that he was obsessed with additional dimensions. In Anémic Cinéma, Duchamp creates the illusion of the third dimension through the movement of the spirals.

Duchamp added: "But the experiments of Muybridge and Marey at the time did interest me. Photochronography they called it; the fencing man or the galloping horse presented in successive images. These photochronographs gave me the idea how to put movement into a picture, as in, for example, Nu descendant un escalier."

What initially started as a short intended for a private screening with friends in Paris eventually became a vital part of film history. Almost a century later, Anémic Cinéma remains proof of Duchamp’s radical artistic sensibilities and his versatility.

Watch the short below.