Double Screen Films

Date: 4 May 2002 | Season: Shoot Shoot Shoot 2002 | Tags:

DOUBLE SCREEN FILMS
Saturday 4 May 2002, at 7:30pm
London Tate Modern

Widening the visual field increased the opportunity for both spectacle and contemplation. With two 16mm projectors side-by-side, time could be frozen or fractured in a more complex way by playing one image against another and creating a magical space between them. Each screening became a unique event, accentuating the temporality of the cinematic experience.

William Raban & Chris Welsby, River Yar, 1971-72, colour, sound, 35 min
Sally Potter, Play, 1971, b/w & colour, silent, 7 min
David Parsons, Mechanical Ballet, 1975, b/w, silent, 8 min
Chris Welsby, Wind Vane, 1972, colour, sound, 8 min
David Crosswaite, Choke, 1971, b/w & colour, sound, 5 min
Malcolm Le Grice, Castle Two, 1968, b/w, sound, 32 min

Raban & Welsby’s River Yar is a monumental study of landscape, nature, light and the passage of time. It employs real time and time-lapse photography to document and contrast the view of a tidal estuary over two three-week periods, in spring and autumn. The film stimulates cosmic awareness as each day is seen to have its elemental events. Sunrise brings in the light and sunset provides the ultimate fade-out. The use of different film stocks, and the depiction of twins seen in a twin-screen format, emphasises the fractured and slightly disorientating view from Sally Potter’s window in Play. David Parsons’ refilming of a stunt car demonstration pulses between frames, analytically transforming the motion into a visceral mid-air dance. Wind Vane (Chris Welsby) was shot simultaneously by two cameras whose view was directed by the wind. The gentle panning makes us subtly aware of the physical space (distance) between the adjacent frames. With a rock music soundtrack, Crosswaite’s Choke, suggests pop art in its treatment of Piccadilly Circus at night. Multiply exposed and treated images mirror each other or travel across the two screens. Castle Two by Malcolm Le Grice immediately throws the viewer into a state of discomfort as one tries to assess the situation, and then proceeds a long, obscure and perplexing indoctrination. “Is that coming through out there?”

Screening introduced by Malcolm Le Grice.

PROGRAMME NOTES