Chaos and Structure in Analogue Film

Screened:
SAT 24/10, 15:00 SLOTTS

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If one wishes, one could – somewhat hyperbolically – argue that the art of film has primarily been about arranging a series of images in succession to highlight a structure, and thereby gain overall control over the material; an interest in structure, grammar, syntax, and narration. In experimental film, this structuring has been achieved, among other ways, through a static camera position or through long takes, through hectic editing, or by emphasising the disjunctive or fragmented relationship between what’s audible and what we see.

This 16 mm programme explores, from quite different starting points, how structural work, the organisation of material, and film syntax relate to chaos – or how the material resists this looming chaos – and examines interaction and productive dialogue. This may involve the instability of the film frame, the visualisation of material conditions, incorporating graphic elements, text inscriptions, or the dynamic use of varying depths of field, multiple exposures, out-of-focus imagery, and the use of flicker effects.

Curator: Martin Grennberger

DECK

During a voyage by boat to Finland, the camera records three minutes of black and white 8 mm film of a woman sitting on a bridge. The preoccupation of the film is with the base and with the transformation of this material, which was first refilmed on a screen where it was projected by multiple projectors at different speeds and then amplified with colour filters, using positive and negative elements and superimposition on the London Co-op’s optical printer.

United Kingdom 1971 / 13:00 / Director: Gill Eatherley

BREAKOUT

The camera is spinning.The traffic disengages from its components – water, bridges, cars, smoke, facades – to become an endless trajectory. The current of energy, which wanders over the various objects: the photographed thing of an immediate familiar reality, a chain of points of inertia.

United States 1990 / 10:00 / Director: Fred Worden

LA FACE ET LE DOS EN MÊME TEMPS (AT THE SAME TIME, EXPOSED BOTH SIDES)

For this film, Okuyama made a camera with two lenses. One of the lenses films the filmmaker from behind while the other films him from the front. He thus obtains two images of himself, superimposed on the same film.

Japan 1990 / 6:00 / Director: Jun’ichi Okuyama

LES COQUELICOTS (THE POPPIES)

Worn out by the sea, the Sète fishing boats decide to spend a day in the country amongst the poppies surrounding Arles, Bédarrides and the Thouzon Grottos.

France 2000 / 2:30 / Director: Rose Lowder

SEMIOTIC GHOSTS

Lisl Pongers peaceful, hovering travel and daily life pictures, assembled associatively instead of narratively, are here developing into a reflection on photography itself, an examination of unknown alphabets: Geometric forms develop out of the world’s chaos.

Austria 1990 / 17:00 / Director: Lisl Ponger

(...) OR ELLIPSES # 3

Brakhage continues to play with surfaces, layering the image with scratch bursts and soft-focus superimpositions. Sentiment arrives with representation.

United States 1998 / 15:00 / Director: Stan Brakhage

LITTLE DOG FOR ROGER

A nostalgic exploration, comprising fragments of reworked 9.5 mm home movie footage. The deterioration of the original film, like memories, contributes to the film’s meaning.

United Kingdom 1967 / 13:00 / Director: Malcolm Le Grice

POST SCRIPTUM

A retroactive parody of cinema – its technical facets, the creative dimension and the creators’ version. The cinematograph once again becomes memory and pure writing.

France 1992 / 4:00 / Director: Frédérique Devaux

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