In "N:O:T:H:I:N:G", Paul Sharits takes the basic flicker effect he had exercised in previous short films (made for the Flux Film series) and pushes it to a far more effective extent. As one of his earliest films to push the boundaries of his prior experiments, it achieves its effect in a more surprisingly simple way: very few images are present in this thirty-four minute short, while much of the flicker effect derives entirely from rapidly-changing color frames. The Flux Film shorts had been much more visually interesting when compared to this effort, but there is one big difference: those shorts had mostly lasted less than a minute, hence not as much time for the effect to set in much, while this film is much lengthier and works more strongly at creating a truly hypnotic experience. Of all the films I've seen of his in this vein, this is probably the most effective one, even better in terms of effects than "Epileptic Seizure Comparison" (1976) - although that one had more of an interesting concept behind it even though the execution was not as effective.
While the other flicker films Sharits had done up to this point were in black and white, "N:O:T:H:I:N:G" is entirely in color and hence utilizes a wider range of possibilities. As stated above, the short consists mostly of color frames flickering quickly, sometimes slower, but sometimes moving at such a stunning rate that the effect becomes stroboscopic. For thirty-four minutes, one might say that this is far too flimsy an idea to execute that long, but there are a few other things featured briefly - including images of a light-bulb and a chair being roughly animated and mixed in with the color frames. In addition, occasional sound effects - particularly towards the end - and at the halfway point, a human voice. It really does work quite amazingly - maybe not gripping the entire time, but not boring, and as an experience very effective.