Experimental Film and Video: An Anthology

302 Pages·2006·10.45 MB·English

by  Jackie Hatfield

Experimental Film
and Video
‘Nothingthathaseverhappenedshouldbe regardedaslost for
history…Toarticulatethe past historically…means to seize hold
of amemoryasit flashesup atamoment of danger.Onlythat
historianwillhave thegiftoffanningthespark ofhope in thepast
who is firmlyconvincedthateventhedeadwillnotbe safe from
theenemyif he wins.’
WalterBenjamin
‘Thesesonthe PhilosophyofHistory’,page 247
Illuminations,(London: Pimlico,1999)
Experimental Film
and Video
An Anthology
Edited by Jackie Hatfield
Picture Editor: Stephen Littman
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
ExperimentalFilmandVideo:AnAnthology
AcatalogueentryforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary
ISBN:9780861966646(Paperbackedition)
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EbookeditionISBN:9780-86196-906-7
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Contents
Contents
Foreword by Sean Cubitt viii
Foreword by A.L. Rees x
Introduction
JackieHatfield xii
SECTION I
Philosophies and Critical Histories of Avant-Garde Film
and Current Practice 1
Chapter1 PostFuturePastPerfect
GrahameWeinbren 3
Chapter2 Matter’sTimeTimeForMaterial
PeterGidal 18
Chapter3 FilmsandInstallations–ASystemsViewofNature
ChrisWelsby 26
Chapter4 ALineThroughMyWork
NickyHamlyn 36
Chapter5 AFewNotesonFilmmaking
JayneParker 47
Chapter6 FilmNoiseAesthetics
RobGawthrop 53
Chapter7 LineDescribingaConeandRelatedFilms
AnthonyMcCall 61
SECTION II
Languages of Representation in Film and Video:
Thresholds of Materiality 75
Chapter8 TrilogicalDistractions
LisRhodes 77
Chapter9 The‘autoethnographic’inChantalAkerman’sNewsfromHome,
andanAnalysisofAlmostOutandStagesofMourning
SarahPucill 83
Contents
Chapter10 Film,TheBody,TheFold
AnInterviewwithNinaDaninoonNowIAmYours
NinaDaninoandSusannaPoole 93
Chapter11 Attitudes1-8
KatherineMeynell 102
Chapter12 VideoWorks1973–1983
DavidCritchley 107
Chapter13 EarlyVideoTapes1978–1987
ChrisMeigh-Andrews 113
Chapter14 AndrewKötting.Whathedoes,howhedoesitandthecontextin
whichithasbeendone:AnAlphabetariumofKötting
GarethEvansandAndrewKötting 126
Chapter15 ArdentforSomeDesperateGlory:RevisitingSmotheringDreams
DanielReeves 137
Chapter16 WarStories,orWhyIMakeVideosAboutOldSoldiers
CateElwes 151
Chapter17 MovingParts:TheDivergenceofPractice
VickySmith 163
SECTION III
Philosophies and Critical Histories of Video Art to Cinema 169
Chapter18 MutationonaForm
KarenMirzaandBradButler 171
Chapter19 Video:Incorporeal,Incorporated
StephenPartridge 180
Chapter20 TamaraKrikorian–DefendingtheFrontier
CateElwes 190
Chapter21 AnotherPlace–DavidHall
JackieHatfield 200
Chapter22 Alchemy andtheDigitalImaginary
DavidLarcher,interviewedbyStephenLittman 212
Chapter23 ReflectionsonMyPracticeandMediaSpecificity
MalcolmLeGrice 220
Chapter24 ExpandedCinema–Proto, Post-Photo
JackieHatfield 237
Chapter25 ImageConText(1978–2003):Film/Performance/Video/Digital
MikeLeggett 246
SECTION IV
Images 263
WorkbyGeorgeBarber,JackieHatfield,StephenHawley, TinaKeane,
TamaraKrikorian,StephenLittman, JoAnnMillet,WilliamRaban,
KaylaParker,GuySherwin,TonySinden,JohnSmith, JeremyWelsh
Forewords
Foreword by Sean Cubitt
ForewordbySeanCubitt
There have been honourable exceptions like Mike O’Pray and
StephenHeath,butfewof the leadingfilm criticsand theorists
of the last forty years have spent much time with artists’ video
andfilm.Thoughfilm-makerLauraMulvey’sessayonvisualpleas-
ure remains one of the most cited in the humanities, her films are
more and more rarely screened in graduate classes. The demands
of genre study, narratology and industrial analysis of national
cinemas have led media scholars away from their interests in the
avant-garde;whiletheavant-garde,especiallyintheUnitedKing-
dom, have been driven further away from media-based funding
towards thegalleryworldorthedigitalunderground.
Politicalradicalism is notthecauseofthis:radicalslikeKenLoach
canstillmakefeaturefilms.Butitmaybearesultofmarginalisation
by the film business and increasingly by funding agencies whose
brief must stretch from popular entertainment to documentary
intervention and grassroots training. Everybody has a reason to
stepaside.
Yet there is a powerful tradition of artists’ writings on vanguard
media practice in the UK. The writings of Peter Gidal and Stuart
Marshall informed many young artists’ projects throughout the
1970sand1980s,sometimesasinspiration,sometimesinreaction,
a constant articulation with emerging practices in film and video
arts. The fabled inarticulateness of the creator was never much
prized among film and video makers: talk was always integral to
the art where making relied so heavily on other people’s help. I
remember a New York based avant-garde filmmaker amazed that
his LondoncrewonajobbingmusicvideowereallreadingKafka
andgoing off to Fassbinder screenings.Theartschooltradition of
demandinga writtendissertationaspartof thedegreestillimpacts
on the distinctive willingness of the UK artist to engage in ideas,
and to generate them.
For lack of a continuous tradition of critical writing – despite the
effortsofUndercutoverthe years–thiscollectionislikelytoprove
atreasuretrovefornewreaders.Piledupinone-offlittlemagazines
and catalogues, mimeographed sheets and letraset layouts are the
vviiiiii
fragments of a thriving culture swept under the carpet of history
Foreword by Sean Cubitt
byasadconfusionofmissedopportunities,crossedwires,confused
responsibilitiesandovercrowdedarchives.Giventhetechnological
savvyofitspractitioners,filmandvideoartintheUKhasbeenfor
the most part an oral culture, and every time one of its old guard
dies,liketheAfricanadageaboutfathers,itislikealibraryhasburnt
down.
These were not theories in the sense of coherent discourses
groundedinaxiomsandbuiltbrickbybrickastheoremsandtheses.
They were assertions, political manifestos, memos from cutting
roomsandgalleryfloors.Theyspokefromthedeliriumofgreeting
a newmachine–theFilmCoop’slegendaryopticalprinter, LVA’s
firstnon-linearsuite.Somecomefromthelost agesof16mm film
and monochrome television. Whole aesthetics have evaporated
sincevideomigratedfromopenreelstocassettes,astheydidwhen
television and shortly thereafter video migrated to colour. The
possibilitiesforinventionwerenolessthen,thoughthepalettewas
perhaps more limited – just as Dürer’s prints are scarcely poor
comparedtohis oils.
Despiteeverything,thediscourseisstillinhocktothegodsoftime:
progress and fashion still rule the ways younger artists approach
older art. The voices seem faded and stilted perhaps, the concerns
remoteandoldhat.Mostofall,ofcourse,thereisscarcelyanything
availabletothemortheirteachersoftheroarandshoveoftheCoop
and LVA, or the irrational passions that drove regional initiatives
intheSouthWest,theEastMidlands,HullandLiverpool.Startling
loyalties and antagonisms between film and video folk, strange
destinies each pursued often separate from the other. Odd allies
that emerged from the British Council and Canada House when
the national collections found it impossible to buy or archive the
cultureofartists workinginthe movingimage.
This Anthology, Experimental Film and Video, is one of a number
ofmovesto reinstate alost history.Itdoesso notonlytosecurea
pensionforunjustlyneglected artists,notonlytofillablank in the
annals of the culture; nor even to bring an era of extraordinary
achievement in the arts back into public view. Most of all, the
Anthologyexistsinabroaderactiontobringtotheemergentartists
ofthe21stcenturysomeflavourof thepioneersofthe 20th.Great
as they were, Picasso, Duchamp and Pollock are poor masters for
artists whose media move in time, make noises, connect to net-
works.Insomewaystheonlygenuinelynativeavant-gardemove-
ment of the 20th century in the UK, the film and media
avant-gardesof the1960s,70sand80ssetthegroundworkforthe
emergent digitalarts. These storiesarealive and infectious.
SeanCubitt
iixx
March2005