CINEMA EXPANDED!

CINEMA EXPANDED!
Patrice James

Various experimental filmmakers are lauding and embracing the concept of Expanded Cinema as it relates to film; these avant-garde film artists are leading the charge; attempting to create an antithetical cinematic experience.  As the commercial film industries both in North America & globally continue to be the ‘pushers’ of new digital technologies as the most viable mode for both the production & presentation of moving imagery; and while various pundits continue to proclaim ‘the death of film’, there is a resurgence occurring especially in the area of experimental film art making.

In a commercial moving image production and dissemination environment, where the material practice of filmmaking is now under fire; where craft is not as essential as accessibility, affordability, expediency and profitability; experimental film artists are creating an alternative, subversive response to filmmaking.  They’re DIYing; creating their own film stocks, bypassing labs by hand processing their film stocks, and creating alternative presentation and viewing experiences, which are posited outside of a conventional single-channel film presentation and viewing experience.  These artists are pushing the boundaries of filmmaking by truly engaging with the film material itself.  Artists like IFCO’s own Roger D. Wilson and Dave Johnson, are joining the ranks of talented Canadian Independent film artists like Amanda Dawn Christie, and Christopher Becks, usurping control over their engagement with the filmic process, both in creation and presentation.  

In the 21^st century, independent film artists are carving out a unique niche for themselves; steadfastly standing their ground in an ocean of hyper-digital discourse which has appropriated the identity of film (emulsion) with no regards for the subtlety, beauty, and extraordinary resiliency of the medium itself. Film doesn’t just lay still; images aren’t simply captured in motion; they’re imprinted. You can scratch on film, bury it, burn it, and it still captures an image, without ever having to run it through a camera; even as it decomposes from ‘wear & tear’, film still provides a salvageable aesthetic.  And not all film has to be screened in a black box; film can be mobile; site specifically presented and installed;   the possibilities are endless.  

And even as these artists experiment, they’re not creating filmic experiences in silos; they’re not attempting to confuse or alienate their audiences, on the contrary; the 21^st century notion of Expanded Cinema, creates new, exciting and alternative opportunities for audiences to question, observe and engage with filmmakers.  They’re not simply ‘eyes glued’ to a conventional movie screen, being ‘spoon fed’ ‘run of the mill’ three or five act ‘storytelling’ with passive appreciation.  I’d also dare assert that Expanded Cinema in the 21^st century has additionally somewhat democratized filmmaking, in that there are various creative prospects for novice filmmakers to readily engage with the film material outside of the traditional modes of production.  As aforementioned, there are lots of ways in which one can manipulate film, without even having to use a camera.

Of course I am not naive, and am not attempting to suggest here that Expanded Cinema practices provide a ‘fail safe’ to the contemporary challenges facing the film medium.  We are living in a rapidly increasing digital reality, though this said; there are still several independent and commercial filmmakers who are shooting on film, who are still solely interested in the single-channel presentation experience; who wish to shoot their films and have them processed and transferred by a lab, and these filmmakers can also be perceived as somewhat working within an Expanded Cinema framework, in that they’re daring to work within a medium that is considered by the naysayers as being no longer necessary or popular towards the proliferation of filmmaking and cinema.  So as the marketplace and manufactured artistry submerge the commercial sphere of film production and presentation, Expanded Cinema of old, is now in the 21^st century vigorously cultivating a new identity. 

Expanded Cinema? 21st century?

Expanded Cinema? 21^st century?
Dave Johnson

The term Expanded cinema was first used in the mid 1960’s by artists Carolee Schneemann and Stan Vanderbeek to describe their multimedia performances. Later, in the early 1970’s, a book titled “Expanded Cinema” was published by Gene Youngblood. Expanded Cinema, simply argued, is the form of motion picture projection or exhibition which denies that of the traditional conventions of the industrial model of cinema as known to the mainstream viewer. Expanded Cinema goes beyond a simple projection intended to be viewed passively. This type of cinema becomes more open to experimentation where the artist’s intention and the viewer’s interpretation or experience can become interactive, a performance, sculpture, etc. which is outside the four wall black box cinema. This type of cinema lends itself to be presented in either formal or non-formal settings, such as an art gallery, coffee house, park or even a warehouse. This being said, Expanded Cinema can also be presented in a conventional black box cinema.

Cinema, as described by a former professor, is a medium which contains the elements of light, time and space. Expanded Cinema takes these elements and experiments with, and pushes their boundaries. This is a requirement to what Youngblood describes as a “new consciousness” for media art. In short, Expanded Cinema brings forward, motion picture as a specific art form, and not just a passive viewing experience as prescribed by conventional cinema projected in a commercial theater.

The notion of Expanded Cinema in the 21^st century as it relates to “film” is seeing a sense of a revival or, as Youngblood describes, in a different context, a “new consciousness”. In the not so distant past, the simple act of scratching or painting on film, setting up a 16mm projector in public or gallery setting had become something that was not seen as revolutionary or particularly inventive. In fact it could be argued that the avant-garde had become the old-garde. However, with the surge of the digital medium and it’s saturation in the consumer market, emulsion based installations are being presented to the mainstream as a unique and specific art form unto itself. Participants or viewers of emulsion based Expanded Cinema are being drawn to this format, and perceive these “ready-made” objects as sculptural, and the images illuminating the screens (or whatever the artist chooses to project onto) are seen as “intense”, “unique”, “magnificent”, “beautiful” (these are only some of the one word comments taken from viewing participants at the recent presentation by Alex MacKenzie). Expanded Cinema as it relates to film in the 21^st century is experiencing a generational changeover and its offspring is coming in the form of new artists and collectives, such as Ottawa’s Windows Collective, Montreal’s DoubleNegative Collective, to name a couple. Furthermore, artists of the Avant-Garde of yesterday are being further celebrated and recognized for their contribution to a form of art and cinema important to the oeuvre of media art.     

Intermedia and The Identity of Film

Intermedia and The Identity of Film
By Sasha Vreca

"What is your understanding about the notion of expanded cinema in the 21^stcentury as it relates to the film medium?"
 
Upon trying to answer this question I found myself in a total state of mind fog, unable to articulate with full confidence my thoughts on the subject. This was partially due to the fact that we’re presently experiencing a constant state of intermedia with regards to art; this is the nature of things in the post-modernism line of thought we’ve inherited from the 20^th century. Intermedia was originally a concept employed in the mid-sixties by Fluxus artist Dick Higgins to describe the often confusing, inter-disciplinary activities that occur between art genres. And so, while sorting through my thoughts on that particular era I found myself thinking about the numerous forms that emerged out of those Fluxus years in the 60s & 70s; I speak here of performance art, installation, site specific interventions, etc. Even more so, I was astonished how film and other emulsion based work managed to morph and adapt to fit into the discourse. 

Vito Acconci - Three Adaptation Studies, 1970

For me, expanded cinema seemed to be nothing more than a way of stating we’re working outside of the conventional presentation format, but due to developments and evolution of the art form over the last century, notably the Fluxus years, we can’t grasp a full understanding of the notion. In order to prevent further confusion when I speak of expanded cinema, I mean to  clarify that I’m no longer addressing the content of the frame with regards to film; the Dadaists, Surrealists, Minimalists, Expressionists, etc. have advanced that discourse far enough and others still carry on. We are far removed here from a Ballet Mécanique(1924) or Marcel Duchamp’s Anémic Cinéma (1926), however relevant these works may still be, I see the notion of expanded cinema to be one that looks beyond the frame; one that addresses the importance of presentation as much as process, without forgetting the artist’s trace, concept and subject matter.

Carolee Schneeman, Fuses, 1967

Being aware of that, we can go back and observe the numerous examples of expanded cinema in those critical years leading to the definition of media arts as its own form of art.  In 1967, Carolee Schneemann presents her completed series ‘Fuses’ which portrayed Schneemann and her then-boyfriend James Tenney having sex as recorded by a 16 mm Bolex camera. She altered the film by staining, burning, and directly drawing on the celluloid itself, mixing the concepts of painting and collage.  ‘Fuses’ was motivated by Schneemann's desire to know if a woman's depiction of her own sexual acts was different from pornography and classical art. Much like Stan Brakhage’s work, the process caused the artist’s intimate involvement with the emulsion piece to become more apparent. The film was support for more than emulsion; it was in fact the platform for a larger external discourse; a discourse which was additionally demonstrated that same year on the Canadian side, in ‘Dans le labyrinthe’ (Roman Kroitor); a groundbreaking multi-screen presentation at Expo 67 in Montreal. 

In the Labyrinth - Dans le labyrinthe, Co-Directed by Roman Kroitor, Colin Low & Hugh O'Connor

Bruce McClure performing -
Photo by Robin Martin

Today we have torchbearers who are continuing to push the boundaries of film art, embracing intermedia to annex performance to projection. Artists such as Alex MacKenzie and Bruce McClure manipulate the projectors, light, and sound in a series of performative gestures that offer the viewer an augmented experience of the piece.  

Taking into consideration the immense progress and trends we inherited from the previous generation; the questions that still linger are the what, where and how it’s going to happened?

FILM MATTERS - GO TO KODAK AND HAVE YOUR SAY!

 

A MEDIUM FOR EACH ARTIST
By Nick Binetti

As a student of Carleton University’s film program, which is purely theoretical, and involves no hands-on practical work, and as a young filmmaker who has worked exclusively within digital mediums, I’ll attempt to present and discuss why film matters, based on my own unique perspective.

Since my early adolescence, the film industry, and indeed the world at large, has strived to move towards a digital landscape.  The rise of the internet and relative inexpensive cost of digital production has given countless filmmakers across the world a voice they otherwise would not have.  Growing up, I witnessed these results, these benefits, and found it difficult to believe that there were still people in the community clutching there Super 16mm, who felt that film was worth the time and effort for what now amounts to a near negligible difference.  I believed these people to be the contemporary equivalents of those who said that film wasn’t an art at the medium’s inception; those who believed the real cinema died upon the introduction of the talkie; those in the 1940s and 50s who viewed colour as too fantastical and brilliant to ever catch on in any major way; all the naysayers who have been slow to change in a world that never stops spinning.

Stan Brakhage

But there is one significant difference between these previous transitions and the move from celluloid to digital: while making a black and white silent film on celluloid might not garner the same audiences as, say, the next CGI dominant summer blockbuster (and, by extension, be less likely to be made), it was still possible for an artist to make a film true to their vision. With the digital revolution already well underway, it’s difficult to say if that will still be the case this time.

 

Professors in class have told stories of early Russian filmmakers scrapping images of film stock to recycle and reuse what little was available, and I fear this may be the future for all celluloid filmmakers. The number of manufacturers of good old fashioned celluloid film is dwindling, and who knows how available film stock will be 10 years from now?

Film and digital are completely different mediums, regardless of the fact that they’re often used for the same purpose.  The procedure of capturing a moving image on a physical film strip is substantially different than translating an image into binary, later to be interpreted by a computer program into a representation of the original image.  Celluloid requires much more finesse and dedication to get the shot you want, and the process in turn affects the product.  While, again, I can’t say for sure since I’ve yet to dabble in filmmaking outside of the digital world, I would imagine that the editing process - and the emotions the editor feels throughout - is drastically different when each frame in front of you is a physical picture that you had to measure and light meticulously for perfection - or conversely appreciating celluloid’s ability to occasionally capture the world in a completely different manner than we intended.

Film matters because it should be up to the artist, not the almighty dollar, to decide which medium he or she works through.  Art is very personal, and to have our cinematic options limited to digital, with constant codec and format issues, would be an atrocity.  The cinema will benefit most from an ecosystem composed of both celluloid and digital.  There is a place for both, we just need to remind people why film matters.

FILM MATTERS - GO TO KODAK AND HAVE YOUR SAY!

 

 

‘WAX POETIC’ – FILM!
By Patrice James

Film moves me, it grooves me, and it makes my thoughts flow.  
It’s natural, intense, filled with a luminous GLOW!
Those asking and questioning why, how, where, when;
have sold out to conformity; now keyboard NOT pen.
I was raised in a space and place fraught with trauma;
the medium of film allows me to expel and exorcize all my drama.

So, the question being posed, is why Film Matters?  Well, in this purportedly democratic world, where each person has a freedom of choice, why should certain things lose their appeal or relevance, just because the marketplace labels them as outmoded, unpopular or dare I declare OBSOLETE?  Well for me, an explanation for why film matters is not really necessary.  Art matters, and the independent artist’s ability to work within whichever art form or medium he or she desires as a form of creative expression is really what’s relevant.  There is not an absolute necessity for us to either apply meaning or worth to, or demand an explanation or a defense of all things; some things contain purely intrinsic value.   The medium of film is one such thing.

In a rapidly increasing consumerist, hyper digitized, fast-food, fast-paced, quick-fix, homogeneous environment/society which demands that everyone has access to everything, no matter their professional acumen.  It is extremely refreshing to have access to original mediums and technologies that STILL demand great discipline, respect for process, a commitment to detail, and a reverence for craftsmanship, and artistry.  In my opinion if we cease to learn, appreciate, and respect existing knowledge, I’m afraid we run the risk of ‘reinventing the wheel’!  And one of the most obvious problems facing us in this ‘free-for-all’ reality is that there is a true lack of understanding about the ethos of film.  New technologies and new technology users are obsessed with achieving a filmic look or experience, without first having any true understanding about the medium itself, its origins, and its historical and contemporary relevance in motion picture capture/moving images.  So the language of film has become appropriated, ‘dummied down’ re-interpreted to satisfy a hyper-digital, purely consumerist driven creation machine; and in order for this machine to thrive and excel; Film mustn’t MATTER!

By my understanding; great art has never been informed by popularity or what’s in mode; genuine art sets the standard by which all else must follow.  Artists are the true champions and orators of cultural appreciation, social accountability and as such need to be equipped with a variety of tools through which they can create, express, and comment.  Film is one of the most tangible, and evolved mediums; it allows for both an experiential and profoundly inventive creative experience.  And so, film matters, because IT IS, IT CAN, IT DOES, IT WILL!

FILM MATTERS - GO TO KODAK AND HAVE YOUR SAY!

HIGH ON D-76!
By Sasha Vreca

For sometime now I‘ve been involved with the analogue medium; experiencing both a strong love and respect for the craft as well as a slight perplexion at times. This sentiment is apparently somewhat mutually expressed by many passionate amateur and professional artists working within this classic medium. With the market takeover of digital technology however, there seems to be some pressure to explain why we still practice this traditional process.  

 I was asking that same question at an earlier time when I was first initiated to the process. “Why bother” I would tell myself while tossing and turning a container of D-76 Developer with my 35mm film in it.  “Why bother going through this long process of measuring, shooting, developing, washing and drying; only to fail and repeat the whole thing over again. Such labour for a few images I haven’t seen or approved yet!?…this is madness!”

I was fast to change my thoughts on the topic when I first witnessed my long awaited image appearing out of darkness before me. There was an interesting moment of bliss as the silver halide crystals were being transformed and the pellicule began showing its hidden content. Or I might have just been high on the chemical vapours, but I digress.

LIVING BREATHING FILM by Christine Blais

This constant debate that exists between film and digital media seems completely irrelevant to me. While there might be personal preferences, one is not superior to the other. The way I see it is that they are two entirely different mediums that operate in completely different ways. As I’ve dabbled in both worlds, I can’t help but wonder why we feel the need to prove the usefulness of analogue film. It has wonderfully strong points that digital will never have the capacity of recreating. You know why? Because it’s not the same medium. It’s that simple. My observation does not merely refer to the aesthetics of film but more so to the processes and the experiences of working with film. 

The experience of filming with a film camera and the manipulation the film material allows for is something that digital media will never be able to offer. Personally I find that the pleasure of film is in the physical manipulation of the plastic medium. You can expose it, cut it, dye it, draw on it or even stick things to it. The beauty lies within the fact that the craft is a direct result of your handiwork. It wasn’t created at the push of a button, by software that has stock functions. You have to work for it and physically make it happen. 

A filmmaker who I look up to is Stan Brakhage. Now he took advantage of what the film medium had to offer and made some really cool stuff out of it. For example, Mothlight is literally a film collage where moth wings and other materials were pressed between two clear strips of film. Each object has a level of transparency which allows light to pass through. In Brakhage’s words,  "I tenderly picked them out and start pasting them onto a strip of film, to try to... give them life again, to animate them again, to try to put them into some sort of life through the motion picture machine." which is exactly what film represents to me. It is a medium that lives and breathes.  

SATYAJIT RAY: The Indian Filmmaker

Satyajit Ray (2 May 1921-23 April 1992) was a Bengali Indian Film maker who was born in Kolkata, India into a Bengali Family of art and literature. He started his career as a commercial artist in Kolkata and went on to become to win international recognition in films.

On a visit to London he met Jean Renoir the French Filmmaker and saw the neorealist film Bicycle Thief (1948) by Vittorio De sica after which he decided to try his hands on filmmaking.

In 1952, Ray started shooting his first film Pather Panchali with an inexperienced crew and some personal savings. It took him three years to complete the film and finally, with a loan from the Government of West Bengal it was released in 1955 and went on to win eleven international prizes, including ‘Best Human Document’ at Cannes Film Festival.