fine art cinema programme

Screened at EXiS Experimental Film and Video Festival in Seoul, Korea on 4th September 2010.
This programme sets out to explore the elements of cinema, both in its production processes and through the live presentation of the works in the cinema theatre. The innovative ideas of each work, still relevant today, challenge our perception of cinema, and expand our experience of what might be possible – in contrast and in opposition to the conventions of cinematic presentation.
In this ever-evolving world of digital technology, it is encouraging that today anyone can work with the moving image. What I would like to suggest with this programme to anyone making a film, is to develop ideas not only with your cameras but also to expand the creative potential of the medium by exploiting all the tools at our disposal, right up to and including the moment of projection.

10 DRAWINGS by Steve Farrer
20 min 1976 16mm
b/w optical sound

“…a selection of 10 short films. For each film, 50 strips (45cm) of clear film stock were laid side by side to make a rectangle 45cm by 80 (50x 16mm). a geometric shap was drawn or sprayed onto each rectangle…then the strips of acetate were joined together, starting from the top left hand corner (beginning) and joining the bottom of the first to the top of the following and so until the bottom right hand corner (end) to produce the film. The sound track is created bu the image carried over into the optical soundtrack area… The surface marks can manifest themselves in three ways: (a) a drawing (drawing of a film), (b) a film (film of a drawing), (c) a soundtrack (sound of a drawing).” – Steve Farrer

#5 by Joost Rekveld
6min 1974 3x 16mm
colour silent

The film explores the relation between image and time on the film strip and modulates continuously between what I regard as two extremes in this respect. In practice, the one extreme consists of film sequences I shot frame by frame with very long exposure-times. These images are light- trails, drawn by moving objects. Illusion of movement during projection is caused by the interference between the movement of the recorded system and the speed of the camera. The other extreme consists of snapshots which I printed on fields of film strips using a photo-enlarger. I spliced these strips together after developing and used them as a printing master. In this way the original image is scattered across several film images and is “scanned” during projection from top left to bottom right. The films are based on a global score for colour, the type of image and the size of the film fields. The images were made using very non-virtual, simple reflecting materials and can be regarded as a kind of action painting with light.
– Joost Rekveld

THIRDS by Simon Payne
9min 2006 2x video projector
colour silent

This piece developed from concerns that grew out of Colour Bars. The two projectors are aligned so that they overlap by a third, defining an expanded frame that approaches wide-screen proportions. Each projector shows a cycle of primary and secondary colours. A third set of colours appears in the overlap of the two projectors, and as the pace of each cycle increases there’s an addiitonal form of colour mixing. The size of the frame that each projector displays grows narrower as the piece progresses, making for illusions of circling and weaving movement. – Simon Payne

PROJECTION INSTRUCTIONS by Morgan Fisher
4min 1976 16mm
b/w optical sound

Morgan Fisher makes films that “…return you to the here and now, and in so doing give you back the body that all other films take away from you” (Morgan Fisher).
The projectionist is no longer the means for delivering the performances of actors to the audience; the projectionist is a performer who, at Fisher’s instruction (or, in a sense, at the film’s instruction), succinctly demonstrates (or fails to demonstrate) the various dimensions of the viewing experience controlled from the projection booth. – Scott MacDonald

RAILINGS by Guy Sherwin
10min 1977
16mm projector on its side.
b/w optical sound


Images of iron railings are converted into sound. One of a series of films that investigates sound qualities generated directly by the image track.
I wanted to hear what railings sound like – this time not by running a stick along them – but by filming them from various angles and perspectives, and then listening to them pass over the projector’s sound-reproducing head. Having access to the London Film-Makers’ Co-op printer meant that I could control the film as it ran through the printer, sometimes freezing the railings – I was curious what sound a still image would make.
The projector lies on its side projecting images (and their accompanying sounds) upright onto the screen. – Guy Sherwin

MATCHBOX by
Wojciech Bruszewski
5min 1975 35mm on video
b/w sound

Matchbox is a beautiful film, simple and complex. It has only two shots which keep repeating. A hand holds a matchbox, taps on a table / cut to a nearby window frame / cut back to the hand. At each repeat the sound of matchbox on table drifts further behind like an echo until it connects with the cut to the window, then with the cut to the hand, and finally it regains sync. But this description is just the start of watching and listening, for what we see is an image with the regularity of 4:4 time coupled with an errant sound that stretches our understanding of the psychology of perception and awakens sensations of desire, anticipation and loss. – Guy Sherwin