“There is no right or wrong way to experience the work and one is likely to find one’s attention diverted from one area of the projected images to another quite unconsciously.” – Daniel Adams full review

“The Washi films were inspired, according to Loo, by Mary Martin’s drawings for Expanding Permutation (1969), in which a grid pattern composed of black and white squares is exhaustively varied – the squares vary in darkness (depending upon how thickly Martin applied the ink) and are filled in by horizontal, vertical, or diagonal lines. The resulting impression is one of implied movement as the grids vary in tiny increments from one drawing to the next, not unlike individual frames of an abstract film. Loo’s films seize upon this permutational quality, extending it into the temporal dimension suggested by Martin’s work, and further elaborating the permutational field by layering multiple films at once and adjusting the audio output live as she watches and responds to the patterns unfolding on screen. Loo thus grants, as it were, temporality and movement to Martin’s static abstractions, in yet another variant of the notion of abstraction’s, inherently dynamic form – as in “gestural” and “action” interpretations of Abstract Expressionism, which we will see taken furthest in Ken Jacob’s Nervous Magic Lantern performances. Loo’s methodical approach to live projection parallels the hidden labour behind Martin’s work, making that labor, by necessity time-based, explicitly part of the work.”
– Jonathan Walley from Cinema Expanded. Avant-Garde Film in the Age of Intermedia. pg 236. Oxford University Press 2020.

A continuing series using patterned washi tape on 16mm clear film to explore lines, shapes, shadows, depth and light through rhythmic changes in the patterns that create the images and sound of the films. Inspiration for this work originated from when I first saw Mary Martin’s Drawings for Expanded Permutation (1969), last displayed at Annely Juda Fine Art in 2013. – Lynn Loo

Synopsis from Iklectik screening in London

This work explores lines, shapes, shadows, depth and light through rhythmic changes in the patterns that create both images and sounds in the film. It makes use of patterned Washi tape applied to clear 16mm film. The MM in the title is for the artist Mary Martin from whom I draw inspiration from in this series.