Fields and Frames #02 (unfinished)

*** UNFINISHED ***
I had been saving this post as a draft for a while now. But. because it's been a while since the last time I've posted anything, I decided to do so. I reckon it gives me the sense of things getting done.
Expanded Cinema is a very intriguing topic and one thing has been leading me to another. It's being relatively easy to find information (text/video) online and that might be dangerous, if one (like myself) is easily taken out of focus.
My currently plan is to finish watching some works by Jezz Keen; after that, I want to try digesting all the information I've got so far and give some thought to it. I also have plans on focusing my next research stage to works which have comedy incorporate to them.

As promised in the previous post, on this one I will write about my recent research on Expanded Cinema as well as analyse some of my previous work.

The first part of my notes, will be on the chapter experimental cinema from the book The Undercut Reader: Critical Writings on Artist's Film and Video (ed. Nina Danino and Michael Maziere, 2003).

The second  part

My Notes

- ManRay reinveted photography, primarily within the context of the Surrealist > Rayograms

- Cameraless Film: scratched, drawn and painted shapes made directly on the filmstrip; hand tinting, shading and overdrawing on found footage as well as the use of Letratone, xerox images and the celebrated wings and petals of Stan Brakhage's film Mothligh  2  

-  Tim Cawkwell - frame by frame
- Paul Sharits -  frameless
- Gordon Smith - recent

-  Liz Rhodes, Steve Farrer, Ian Kerr and Rob Gawthrop: the projector was the main protagonist.

*6'00'' - "The Machine" by Steve Farrer (first screening, 1978)

• Hellspitflexion (16mm, 1983) by Stan Brakhage: It's one of four short films which together received the name of The Dante Quartet. The piece as a whole took six years to be produced and it was completed in 1987.  Dante Quartet was inspired by Brakhage's interest in Dantes' The Divine Comedy "...operates on the dividing line between abstraction and representation a strategy Brakhage uses to pull representational imagery away from a naturalistic order into a firmly poetic one. "; "abstracted representations on the one hand and anthropomorphic abstractions on the other. " --- According to the blog Preservation Insanity, Stan created this piece by painting over a 35mm print of The Garden of Earthly Delights (1981). 

- Dresden Dynamo by Lis Rhodes

- Ten Drawings by Steve Farrer

- Ian Kerr: strong iconic statements; found images - Post Office Tower Retowered

- Vanda Carter: uses text

Online

Expanded Cinema: combines films with other visual forms: The elaboration of screen space, multi-projection as interrelated images environmental documentation, environmental, diaristic, participation/events, installation, performance, and other works that were a mixture of some or all of there.

• Marlyn Halford: combination of dance, mime, theatre and projected images. Film is used to present an action or sequence theatrically. 
• Ron Hazelden: "Film as a time based language takes my work directly into the cinema of performance - during the performance aspects are rephtographed by the camera in the theatre, and that footage incorporated into the next showing". That reminded me of Willian Raban's work.
• Willian Raban: multi-screen films and films that activate the live spaces of the audience; the format is dependent on the space available.  In this video, Willian Raban talks about his works and ideas on Expanded Cinema:

"Expanded Cinema is about making live cinema that collapses together the time of production and the time of the showing of the film."

2'45'' (1971): live film performance; camera filming the audience; sounds of the projection are being recorded; It catches the audience comments as it was being made.

"whereas is structural film you're trying to make the audience constantly aware of the all the interventions you're making…"

There is also a full chapter written by Raban in which he uses his own work as reference to describe the origins of expanded cinema. Book Expanded Cinema: Art Performance Film - Chapter: Reflexivity and Expanded Cinema: A Cinema of Transgression? 

Artists and pieces cited on the video above:

Island Race (video) - It discuss the transformation that was happening at the Isle of Dogs (London) during the mid-90s. This very political piece may receive different interpretations, but in my case it made me think about: urban transformation; right-wing extremists; left-wing; intolerance; the oppressive  manner in which the working class is treated; people functioning as disposable mass. 

David Cunningham (sound artist) - (1) - (2) - (3) - Current exhibition (21st Feb-15th Apr, London) - discography

John Akomfrah (1) - (Unfinished Conversation - video).

Jeff Keen - After watching Bitter Lake (Adam Curtis, 2015) I became intrigued by experimental approaches to the narrative form. Therefore,  when I got the DVD collection of Jeff Keen's works (Gazwrx : the films of Jeff Keen), I decided to watch, firstly, White Dust (1970-72) and Mad Love (1972-78). 

Watching Keef's works brought me some relief, because although they are considered Expanded Cinema works, they were not abstract. The usage of music in his films is another point which I enjoyed.