Infinite Projection

Date: 17 April 2002 | Season: Infinite Projection

INFINITE PROJECTION
17 April–18 December 2002
London The Photographers’ Gallery

Despite a rich history and a dedicated, continuously expanding audience, an important area of the arts is being neglected in our capital city. No venue in London is committed to showing artists’ film and video in its purest form, specific to its medium, truly independent. The arts centres, galleries, colleges and museums are not our advocates, institutions are failing us.

There’s heart and passion, but no hub. Infinite Projection does not aspire to be that centre, more a satellite cell. A meeting point, a principle, an impulse, a SCREEN. A starting point for further action and a statement of intent. They tell us film is dead, but they haven’t eradicated us yet. Film is thriving and we are digging in, powerful and resolute, here for the DURATION, shining forth into infinity.

Infinite Projection is presented by Mark Webber and co-ordinated by Lisa Le Feuvre.

Thank you Ben Cook & Mike Sperlinger, David Leister, Michael Zimmerman, Stefanie Schuldt Strathaus & Karl Winter, Deirdre Logue & the Canadian Filmmakers’ Distribution Centre, Christophe Bichon, Barbara Pichler & Brigitta Burger-Utzer, Dominic Angerame, Michael Sippings, Rob Gawthrop, Hogge, Paola Igliori and Jonathan Swain

Films and videos distributed by Anthology Film Archives (New York), Lightcone (Paris), Collectif Jeune Cinema (Paris), Fringe Films (Toronto), Lux (London), Film Form (Stockholm), Filmmakers’ Information Centre (Tokyo), Canyon Cinema (San Francisco), Video Data Bank (Chicago).

Supported by the Arts Council of England’s DNet exhibition screenings 2002 and assisted by LUX. Supported by London Film & Video Development Agency.


Gustav Deutsch: Film ist 1-6

Date: 17 April 2002 | Season: Infinite Projection

GUSTAV DEUTSCH: FILM IST 1-6
Wednesday 17 April 2002, at 7:30pm
London The Photographers’ Gallery

Drawing on a vast accumulation of material from archives throughout the world, Deutsch multiplies content against form to magnify the power of each image, and presents a rigorous and entertaining exposition of film’s unique qualities. The initial six sections of this tableaux film focus primarily on scientific and medical footage concerning the birth of cinema and the phenomena of sight and perception.

Gustav Deutsch, Film Ist 1-6, 1998, 60 min
Thomas Draschan, Metropolen des Leichtsinns, 2000, 12 min

The screening of Film Ist 1-6 is supported by the Austrian Cultural Forum.

PROGRAMME NOTES

Jeff Keen: From Raydayfilm to Artwar

Date: 1 May 2002 | Season: Infinite Projection | Tags:

JEFF KEEN
Wednesday 1 May 2002, at 7:30pm
London The Photographers’ Gallery

A special Mayday Rayday expanded cinema performance to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the first Rayday broadsheet. Using 8mm, 16mm and video, Jeff Keen bridges the gap between 1969’s Raydayfilm and his recent Artwar: The Last Frontier. A unique and spontaneous mixed-media collage from Britain’s first and most productive independent filmmaker.

Jeff Keen, From Raydayfilm to Artwar, UK, 1969-2002, colours, sounds, c.70 min (multi-media performance)

“Keen is indebted to the Surrealist tradition for many of his central concerns: his passion for instability, his sense of le merveilleux, his fondness for analogies and puns, his preference for ‘lowbrow’ art over aestheticism of any kind, his dedication to collage and le hazard objectif. But this ‘continental’ facet of his work – virtually unique in this country – co-exists with various typically English characteristics, which betray other roots. The tacky glamour/true beauty of his Family Star productions is at least as close to the end of Brighton pier as it is to Hollywood B-movies… The heroic absurdity and adult infantilism that are the mainsprings of his comedy draw on a long tradition of post-Victorian humour: not the ‘innocent’ vulgarity of music hall, but the anarchicness of The Goons and the self-lacerating ironies of the 30s clowns, complete with their undertow of melancholia.” (Tony Rayns, “Born to Kill: Mr. Soft Eliminator”, Afterimage No. 6, 1976)

This event is related to the Shoot Shoot Shoot season at Tate Modern throughout May 2002.

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Warren Sonbert

Date: 15 May 2002 | Season: Infinite Projection

WARREN SONBERT
Wednesday 15 May 2002, at 7:30pm
London The Photographers’ Gallery

Carriage Trade is Sonbert’s masterwork, a personal film postcard that weaves together glimpses of world travels collected over a six-year period. Its meticulously crafted form builds each adjacent shot in a musical rhythm, matching and contrasting, to create an effervescent and sophisticated silent meditation. 

Warren Sonbert, Carriage Trade, 1971-72, 60 min

PROGRAMME NOTES

8mm Films from the London Co-op

Date: 29 May 2002 | Season: Infinite Projection, Shoot Shoot Shoot 2002 | Tags:

8MM FILMS FROM THE LONDON CO-OP
Wednesday 29 May 2002, at 7:30pm
London The Photographers’ Gallery

The home movie format of 8mm can empower artists to make extremely personal and direct film observations. Spontaneity and intimacy are inherent to this pocket sized system. This special evening of single and multi-screen small gauge wonders concludes Shoot Shoot Shoot, a major retrospective of British avant-garde film, which screens at Tate Modern throughout May. Many of the makers will be on hand to introduce their work.

David Crosswaite, Puddle, UK, 1968, b/w, silent, 4 min
Mike Dunford, Four Short Films, UK, 1969, b/w & colour, silent, 10 min
Mike Dunford, One Million Unemployed in Winter 1971, UK, 1971, colour, sound-on-tape, 4 min
Jeff Keen, Wail, UK, 1960, colour, silent, 5 min
Jeff Keen, Like the Time is Now, UK, 1961, colour, silent, 6 min
Malcolm Le Grice, China Tea, UK, 1965, colour, silent, 10 min
Annabel Nicolson, Black Gate, UK, 1976, colour, silent, 4 min
Sally Potter, Jerk, UK, 1969, b/w, silent, 3 min (two screen)
William Raban, Sky, UK, 1969, colour, silent, 5 min (four screen)
John Smith, Out the Back, UK, 1974, colour, silent, 4 min

David Crosswaite, Mike Dunford, Malcolm Le Grice, Sally Potter, William Raban and John Smith in attendence.

PROGRAMME NOTES

True Patriot Love: The Films of Joyce Wieland

Date: 19 June 2002 | Season: Infinite Projection

TRUE PATRIOT LOVE: THE FILMS OF JOYCE WIELAND
Wednesday 19 June 2002, at 7:30pm
London The Photographers’ Gallery

In her short films, Joyce Wieland managed to distil the essence of Canadian national pride and the purest vision of a female artist. Profoundly political and inveterately sensitive, Wieland addressed the real issues from a humble perspective, but with a rigorous formality. This programme presents work seldom seen in this country, and includes the classic Rat Life and Diet in North America, which humorously depicts the plight of a group of gerbils who escape from suppression in the US to pursue an ecological future north of the border.

Joyce Wieland & Hollis Frampton, A & B in Ontario, Canada, 1967-84, b/w, sound, 17 min
Joyce Wieland, Patriotism I, Canada, 1964, colour, sound, 4 min
Joyce Wieland, Handtinting, Canada, 1967, colour, silent, 6 min
Joyce Wieland, Sailboat, Canada, 1967, colour, sound, 3 min
Joyce Wieland, Water Sark, Canada, 1966, colour, sound, 14 min
Joyce Wieland, Patriotism II, Canada, 1965, colour, silent, 3 min
Joyce Wieland, Peggy’s Blues Skylight, Canada, 1965, b/w, sound, 11 min
Joyce Wieland, Rat Life and Diet in North America, Canada, 1968, colour, sound, 14 min
Joyce Wieland, Birds at Sunrise, Canada, 1972-86, colour, sound, 10 min

“Joyce Wieland’s films elude easy categorisation. The body of work as a whole is varied – some of a formal nature, others less so. Several are political, concerned with technology, ecology and her native land, Canada. Her films are informed by her involvement in other, more directly tactile art forms – painting, drawing, construction, and work derived from quilting, such as stuffed wall hangings, pillowed quilts and embroidery. There is always a concern with textures and/or colours and their relationships within the frame and within the shaping of each film as a whole. Moreover, there is an ongoing dialogue, a cross-fertilisation between film and the other forms of art in which she works.” (Regina Cornwell, 1971, reprinted in The Films of Joyce Wieland (ed. Kathryn Elder), 1999)

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Harry Smith: American Magus

Date: 3 July 2002 | Season: Infinite Projection

HARRY SMITH: AMERICAN MAGUS
Wednesday 3 July 2002, at 7:30pm
London The Photographers’ Gallery

A documentary by Paola Igliori (editor of an indispensable book with the same title) which provides a fascinating insight into the life and work of singular genius Harry Smith, whose pioneering abstract films were only a small part of his anthropological pursuits. His broad range of interests, including alchemy, the occult, folk music, field recordings, Seminole textiles and Ukranian Easter Eggs, are represented in this suitably kaleidoscopic film which flits between mysticism and secularity.

Paola Igliori, American Magus, Italy/USA, 2002, video, colour, sound, 93 min

PROGRAMME NOTES

The Film According to Owen Land (formerly known as Cinema According to George Landow)

Date: 17 July 2002 | Season: Infinite Projection

THE FILM ACCORDING TO OWEN LAND (FORMERLY KNOWN AS CINEMA ACCORDING TO GEORGE LANDOW)
Wednesday 17 July 2002, at 7:30pm
London The Photographers’ Gallery

Ranging from the celebrated early structural films through to the post-modern and referential works which combine/confuse humour with dense theoretics, here are the incredible works of cinema’s mystery man Land(ow) (including the rarely screened original version of Institutional Quality). He exposed the material of film, deconstructed the process and the effect, while covering the ‘big topics’ of religion, psychoanalysis, capitalism and pandas making avant-garde movies. Last reported to be making a feature length revisionist history of underground film on 35mm.

Owen Land, Diploteratology or Bardo Follies, USA, 1967, silent, colour, 20 min (full version)
Owen Land, The Film that Rises to the Surface of Clarified Butter, USA, 1968, b/w, sound, 10 min
Owen Land, Institutional Quality, USA, 1969, colour, sound, 5 min (original version)
Owen Land, Wide Angle Saxon, USA, 1974, colour, sound, 22 min
Owen Land, “No Sir, Orison”, USA, 1975, colour, sound, 3 min
Owen Land, Thank You Jesus for the Eternal Present: 1, USA, 1973, colour, sound, 6 min
Owen Land, A Film of Their 1973 Spring Tour Commissioned by Christian World Liberation Front of Berkeley, California, USA, 1974, b/w, sound, 11 min
Owen Land, On the Marriage Broker Joke as cited by Sigmund Freud in Wit and its Relation to the Unconscious, or Can the Avant-Garde Artist Be Wholed?, USA, 1980, sound, colour, 18 min

PROGRAMME NOTES

The Basque Masterpiece

Date: 31 July 2002 | Season: Infinite Projection

THE BASQUE MASTERPIECE
Wednesday 31 July 2002, at 7:30pm
London The Photographers’ Gallery

Ere Erera Baleibu Icik Subua Aruaren traverses infinite dimensions in its abstract, cinemascopic passage. This epic voyage was hand painted onto 35mm by the Spanish artist José Antonio Sistiaga, and his collaborators, over an eight-month period in 1970. The film’s continually changing chromatic structures almost caused riots at early screenings, but it is now widely regarded as an exemplary achievement of moving visual music and spiritual devotion.

José Antonio Sistiaga, Ere Erera Baleibu Icik Subua Aruaren, 1970, 75 min (Cinemascope)

PROGRAMME NOTES

Jonas Mekas Video Show

Date: 21 August 2002 | Season: Infinite Projection | Tags:

JONAS MEKAS VIDEO SHOW
Wednesday 21 August 2002, at 7:30pm
London The Photographers’ Gallery

A rare opportunity to view videotapes by the legendary advocate of avant-garde film. His organisation Anthology Film Archives began to show videotapes by artists as early as 1974, and Mekas himself has been regularly using video since the mid-1980s, amassing footage and creating tapes which are largely unknown or unseen. Jonas Mekas will be in the UK for a retrospective at the Edinburgh Film Festival, and will join us to introduce this screening.

Jonas Mekas, Self-Portrait, 1980, 11 min
Jonas Mekas, Remedy for Melancholy, 1993-97, 28 min
Jonas Mekas, Autobiography of a Man Who Carried his Memory in his Eyes, 2000, 50 min
Jonas Mekas, Cinema is Not 100 Years Old, 1996, 5 min

“I got into video when a New York Sony representative decided to hand for free Sony 8 video cameras to ‘famous’ New Yorkers in exchange for a few minutes of video they would use then to promote the cameras. So I got one, and gave them my first very, very bad five minutes of video. They also gave one camera to Allen Ginsberg, who took it on his trip to Israel where it was stolen from him; Sony got no footage. Anyway, that was the beginning.

“That was in late 1987. The camera was Video 8. Later I switched to Video Hi-8, and that’s where I still am. Because I like to do all my editing at home and at weirdest and unpredictable hours, I cannot yet afford digital video due to the expensive editing equipment. But Hi-8 editing is cheap.

“Jokingly I say, when asked, that I use the video camera as I would use a tape recorder. There is some truth to it. It’s opposite to what I do with my Bolex. No single frames. No emphasis on colour. It’s more stress on mood, atmosphere, and you can’t get mood or atmosphere in single frames. Which means, in my video diaries I record a different aspect of reality than what I do with a Bolex or in my written poetry.

“I have collected by now, that is, by June 1st, 2002, c.750 hours of video material. During the next 12 months or so my intention is to prepare a c.24 hour video volume of my life in New York.”

(Jonas Mekas, 1st June 2002)

PROGRAMME NOTES