SHOOT SHOOT SHOOT
THE FIRST DECADE OF THE LONDON FILM-MAKERS’ CO-OPERATIVE & BRITISH AVANT-GARDE FILM 1966-76
INTRODUCTION
The London Film-Makers’ Co-operative
was founded in 1966 and based upon the
artist-led distribution centre created by
Jonas Mekas and the New American
Cinema Group. Both had a policy of open
membership, accepting all submissions
without judgement, but the LFMC was
unique in incorporating the three key
aspects of artist filmmaking: production,
distribution and exhibition within a single
facility.
Early pioneers like Len Lye, Antony
Balch, Margaret Tait and John Latham
had already made remarkable personal
films in England, but by the mid-60s
interest in “underground” film was grow-
ing. On his arrival from New York,
Stephen Dwoskin demonstrated and
encouraged the possibilities of experi-
mental filmmaking and the Coop soon
became a dynamic centre for the discus-
sion, production and presentation of
avant-garde film. Several key figures such
as Peter Gidal, Malcolm Le Grice, John
Smith and Chris Welsby went onto
become internationally celebrated. Many
others, like Annabel Nicolson and the
fiercely autonomous and prolific Jeff
Keen, worked across the boundaries
between film and performance and
remain relatively unknown, or at least
unseen.
PROGRAMME NOTES
A GUIDE TO THE FILMS IN THE
EXHIBITION
“What follows is a set of instructions,
necessarily incomplete, for the construc-
tion, necessarily impossible, of a mosaic.
Each instruction must lead to the screen,
the tomb and temple in which the mosaic
grows. The instructions are fractured but
not frivolous. They are no more than
clues to the films which lust for freedom
and re-illumination with, by and of the
cinema. What follows is not truth, only
evidence. The explanation is in the pro-
jection and the perception.”
Simon Hartog, 1968
“It is often difficult for a venue organis-
er/programmer to determine from written
description what an individual or group
of film-makers work is ‘about’, from
where it comes, to what or whom it is
addressing itself. Equally, it is difficult
for a film-maker to provide such informa-
tion from within the pages of a catalogue
when for many, including myself, the
entire project or the area into which one’s
work energy is concentrated, is intent on
clarifying these kind of questions. The
films outside of such a situation become
more or less dead objects, the residue
(though hopefully a determined residue)
of such an all-embracing pursuit.”
Mike Leggett, 1980
SPECIAL
EDITION
screens in an oblique formation. single flat screen area. This film works machinery itself which imposes this rela- William Raban & Chris Welsby, River when the children suddenly move from
Gill Eatherley literally painted in light well in a conventional film theatre when tionship. The image throughout is com- Yar, 1971-72, colour, sound, 35m one space to the other, ‘through’ the
over extremely long exposures to shoot the top left screen spills over the ceiling posed of straight lines. It need not have Sally Potter, Play, 1971, b/w & colour, frame lines, their originally continuous
Hand Grenade, which runs three differ- and the bottom right projects down over been.” silent, 7m movement is transformed into cinematic
ent edits of the material side-by-side. the audience. It is the same image on all Lis Rhodes, A Perspective on English David Parsons, Mechanical Ballet, 1975, magic.”
The Co-op asserted the significance of Light Music developed into a series of three projectors, a double-exposed flick- Avant-Garde Film catalogue, 1978 b/w, silent, 8m Scott MacDonald, A Critical Cinema
the British films in line with international enquiries into the nature of optical sound- ering rectangle of the projector gate slid- Chris Welsby, Wind Vane, 1972, colour, 3, 1998
developments, whilst surviving hand-to- tracks and their direct relation to the ing diagonally into and out of frame. LINE DESCRIBING A CONE sound, 8m
mouth in a series of run down buildings. abstract image. The film can be shown in Focus is on the projector shutter, hence David Crosswaite, Choke, 1971, b/w & “To be frank, I always felt like a loner, an out-
The physical hardship of the organisa- different configurations, with projectors the flicker. This film is ‘about’ the projec- “Once I started really working with film colour, sound, 5m sider. I never felt part of a community of film-
side-by-side or facing into each other. tor gate, the plane where the film frame is and feeling I was making films, making Malcolm Le Grice, Castle Two, 1968, makers. I was often the only female, or one of
Anthony McCall succinctly demonstrates caught by the projected light beam.” works of media, it seemed to me a com- b/w, sound, 32m few, which didn’t help. I didn’t have a buddy
the sculptural potential of film as a single William Raban, Perspectives on pletely natural thing to come back and thing going, which most of the men did. They
ray of light, incidentally tracing a circle British Avant-Garde Film catalogue, back and back, to come more away from (Total running time approximately 97m) also had rather different concerns, more hard-
on the screen, is perceived as a conical 1977 a pro-filmic event and into the process of edged structural concerns … I was probably
line emanating from the projector. The filmmaking itself. And at the time it all more eclectic in my taste than many of the
beam is given physical volume in the “The first great excitement is finding the boiled down to some very simple ques- English structural filmmakers, who took an
room by use of theatrical smoke, or anyidea, making its acquaintance, and court- tions. In my case, and perhaps in others, absolute prescriptive position on film. Most of
other agent (such as dust) that would ing it through the elaborate ritual of film the question being something like “What them had gone to Oxford or Cambridge or
thicken the air to make it more apparent.
production. The second excitement is the would a film be if it was only a film?” some other university and were terribly theoret-
moment of projection when the film
More than just a film, Line Describing a Carolee Schneemann and I sailed on the ical. I left school at fifteen. I was more the
Cone affirms cinema as a collective becomes real and can be shared with the SS Canberra from Southampton to New hand-on artist and less the academic. The over-
social experience. audience. The former enjoyment is York in January 1973, and when we riding memory of those early years is of mak-
unique and privileged; the second is not, embarked, all I had was that question. ing things on the kitchen table by myself…”
Malcolm Le Grice, Castle One, 1966, and so long as the film exists, it is infi- When I disembarked I already had the Sally Potter interviewed by Scott
Malcolm Le Grice, Castle Two
b/w, sound, 20m nitely repeatable.” plan for Line Describing a Cone fully- MacDonald, A Critical Cinema 3, 1998
William Raban, Take Measure, 1973, William Raban, Arts Council Film- fledged in my notebook. You could say it
colour, silent, (X)m Makers on Tour catalogue, 1980 was a mid-Atlantic film! It’s been the RIVER YAR MECHANICAL BALLET
William Raban, Diagonal, 1973, colour, story of my life ever since, of course,
sound, 6m HAND GRENADE where I’m located, where my interests “The camera points south. The landscape “… I began to forge ideas that explored the
Gill Eatherley, Hand Grenade, 1971, are, that business of “Am I English or am is an isolated frame of space – a wide- making of the work and the procedure of events
colour, sound, 8m “Although the word ‘expanded’ cinema I American?” So that was when I con- angle view of a tidal estuary, recorded and ideas unfolding in space and time.
tion’s struggle contributed to the rigor- Lis Rhodes, Light Music, 1975-77, b/w, has also been used for the open/gallery ceived Line Describing a Cone and then I during Autumn and Spring. The camera Inevitably, this led to the consideration of the
ous, formal nature of films produced dur- sound, 20m size/multi screen presentation of film, made it in the months that followed.” holds a fixed viewpoint and marks time at filmmaking apparatus as an integral element
ing this period. While the Structural Anthony McCall, Line Describing A this ‘expansion’ (could still but) has not Anthony McCall, interview with the rate of one frame every minute (day within the construction of the film. Taken liter-
approach dominated, informing both the Cone, 1973, b/w, silent, 30m yet proved satisfactory – for my own Mark Webber, 2001 and night) for three weeks. The two ally of course, this applies to the making of any
interior and landscape tendencies, the work anyway. Whether you are dealing sequences Autumn and Spring, are pre- film, but I am referring to processes that do not
British filmmakers also made significant (Total running time approximately 93m) with a single postcard size screen or six “One important strategy of expanded cin- sented symmetrically on adjacent attempt to hide the means of production and
innovations with multi-screen films and ema radically alters the spatial discrete- screens. The first Spring sunrise is make the technique transparent, rather the very
expanded cinema events, producing ness of the audience vis-à-vis the screen recorded in real time (24 fps) for 14 min- opposite. There are many parallels in other cre-
works whose essence was defined by and the projector by manipulating the utes, establishing a comparative scale of ative fields: the improvisational aspects of
their ephemerality. Many of the works projection facilities in a manner which speed for the Autumn screen, where com- modern jazz, and Exercises in Style by the
fell into the netherworld between film elevates their role to that of the perform- plete days are passing in one minute. wonderful French writer Raymond Queneau.
and fine art, never really seeming at home ance itself, subordinating or eliminating Then both screens run together in stop- These examples spring to mind as background
in either cinema or gallery spaces. the role of the artist as performer. The action until the Autumn screen breaks influences upon what I see now as an essential-
films of Anthony McCall are the best into a 14 minute period of real time for ly modernist project, in that I was attempting to
Shoot Shoot Shoot, a major retrospective illustration of this tendency. In Line the final sunset into darkness. Recordings assert the material aspects of making, over what
programme and research project, will Describing a Cone, the conventional pri- were made of landscape sound at specific was depicted. So, to turn to the camera to
bring these extraordinary works back to macy of the screen is completely aban- intervals each day. Each screen has its attempt exhaust all the possibilities of its lens-
life. doned in favour of the primacy of the pro- own soundtrack which mixes with the es, the film transportation mechanism, the shift
jection event. According to McCall, a other in the space of the cinema.” of the turret, hand holding or tripods mounting,
Curated by Mark Webber screen is not even mandatory: The audi- William Raban & Chris Welsby, NFT as conditioning factors within the films became
with assistance from Gregory Kurcewicz ence is expected to move up and down, in English Independent Cinema programme the challenge. The project broadened out with
and Ben Cook. and out of the beam – this film cannot be notes, 1972 seemingly endless possibilities offered by the
fully experienced by a stationary specta- film printer, the projector, and the screen.”
Shoot Shoot Shoot is a LUX project. tor. This means that the film demands a “Chris found the location.which was an David Parsons, “Picture Planes”,
Funded by the Arts Council of England multi-perspectival viewing situation, as ex-water mill in Yarmouth on the Isle of Filmwaves No. 2, November 1997
National Touring Programme, the British opposed to the single-image/single-per- Wight, owned by the sons of the historian
Council, bfi and the Esmée Fairbairn spective format of conventional films or A.J.P. Taylor. We managed to get it for an “Several areas of interest intersect in the mak-
Foundation. the multi-image/single-perspective for- astonishing rent of £5 a week. One of its ing of Mechanical Ballet: an interest in ‘found’
mat of much expanded cinema. The shift upstairs windows happened to look over footage (relating to collage, assemblage), the
of image as a function of shift of per- this river estuary, it was the kind of view manipulation of the film strip and the film
spective is the operative principle of the we were looking for, so it was ideal in
“The most important thing still is to let
film. External content is eliminated, and many ways. We’d worked out the concep-
frame, time and duration, projection and the
oneself get into the film one is watching, screen, and the film printing process, to high-
to stop fighting it, to stop feeling the need the entire film consists of the controlled tual model for the film, how we wanted it light some of the main concerns. In the early
to object during the process of experi- line of light emanating from the projec- to look as a two-screen piece, more or
’70s I began a series of experiments with ways
ence, or rather, to object, fight it, but tor; the act of appreciating the film – i.e., less entirely in advance. We also knew
of refilming and improvising new constructions
overcome each moment again, to keep ‘the process of its realisation’ – is the what camera we wanted. There was real- with different combinations of frames. Thus
letting oneself overcome one’s difficul- content.” ly only the Bolex camera that would be
new forms emerged from the found material
ties, to then slide into it (one can always Anthony McCall, Line Describing A Cone Deke Dusinberre, “On Expanding suitable for filming it on. I made an elec-
that I had selected to use as my base material.
demolish the experience afterwards any- Cinema”, Studio International, tric motor for firing the time-lapse shots
In one work I extended the closing moments of
way, so what’s the hurry?).” November/December 1975 that was capable of giving time exposures
the tail footage of a film, consisting of less than
Peter Gidal, c.1970-71 CASTLE ONE ten-foot screens, the problems are basi- as well as instantaneous exposures. a second of flared out frames, stretching it into
cally the same – to try to establish a more Unknown to us of course, the first period
“The light bulb was a Brechtian device to positively dialectical relationship with
two minutes forty five seconds, 100 foot of
* * * * * * of shooting coincided with the big coal
make the spectator aware of himself. I the audience. I am concerned (like many
film. In another I used some early documenta-
miners’ strike, in the Ted Heath govern-
tion of time and motion studies of factory
EXPANDED CINEMA don’t like to think of an audience in the others) with this balance between the DOUBLE SCREEN FILMS ment, so the motor was redundant for workers performing repetitive tasks on machin-
mass, but of the individual observer and audience and the film – and the noetic most of the time; we had to shoot the film
his behaviour. What he goes through problems involved.”
ery. A speedometer mounted in the corner of
by hand. And it was quite interesting
the frame monitored the progress of their
British filmmakers led a drive beyond the while he watches is what the film is Gill Eatherley, 2nd International Widening the visual field increased the because we weren’t just making River actions in relation to the time it took to perform
screen and the theatre, and their innova- about. I’m interested in the way the indi- Avant-Garde Film Festival programme opportunity for both spectacle and con- Yar, we were down there for six weeks in their tasks. I found the content both disturbing
tions in expanded cinema inevitably took vidual constructs variety from his percep- notes, 1973 templation. With two 16mm projectors the autumn and three weeks again the fol- and absurd and sought to exemplify this by
the work into galleries. After questioning tual intake.” side-by-side, time could be frozen or lowing spring, so we were also making exaggerating the action and ‘stalling’ the moni-
the role of the spectator, they began to Malcolm Le Grice, Films and “Malcolm Le Grice helped me with Hand fractured in a more complex way by play- other work. I was doing a series of tree
toring process by racking the film back and
examine the light beam, its volume and Filming, February 1971 Grenade. First of all I did these stills, the ing one image against another and creat- prints in a wood nearby. And we invited forth through the gate. The original material
chairs traced with light. And then I want- ing a magical space between them. Each people down to share the experience with
presence in the room. “… totally Kafkaesque, but also filmical- ed it to all move, to be in motion, so we that formed the basis for Mechanical Ballet was
screening became a unique event, accen- us, so Malcolm, Annabel and Gill all
ly completely different from anyone else an anonymous short reel of film of what
In a step towards later complex projection because of the rawness. The Americans started to use 16mm. We shot only a hun- tuating the temporality of the cinematic came to stay.” appeared to be car crash tests. In the original
pieces, for Castle One, Malcolm Le Grice are always talking about ‘rawness’, but dred feet on black and white. It took ages, experience. William Raban, interview with Mark these tests are carried out in a deadpan and
hung a light bulb in front of the screen. Its it’s never raw. When the English talk actually, because it’s frame by frame. We Webber, 2001
intermittent flashing bleaches out the about ‘raw’, they don’t just talk about it, shot it in pitch dark, and then we took it River Yar is a monumental study of land-
image, illuminates the audience and lays it really is raw – it’s grey, it’s rainy, it’s to the Co-op and spent ages printing it all scape, nature, light and the passage of
bare the conditions of the traditional grainy, you can hardly see what’s there. out on the printer there. This is how I first time. It employs real time and time-lapse
screening arrangement. got involved with the Co-op.” photography to document and contrast
The material really is there at the same Gill Eatherley, interview with Mark the view of a tidal estuary over two three-
Take Measure, by William Raban, visual- time as the image. With the Germans, it’s
ly measures a dimension of the space as a high-class image of material, optically Webber, 2001 week periods, in spring and autumn. The
the filmstrip is physically stretched reproduced and glossy. The Americans film stimulates cosmic awareness as each
between projector and screen. To make are half-way there, but the English stuff LIGHT MUSIC day is seen to have its elemental events.
Diagonal, he directly filmed into the pro- looked like it really was home-made, arti- Sunrise brings in the light and sunset pro-
jector gate and presents the same flicker- sanal, and yet amazingly structured. And “Lis Rhodes has conducted a thorough vides the ultimate fade-out.
ing footage in dialogue across three I certainly thought Castle One was the investigation into the relationship The use of different film stocks, and the
between the shapes and rhythms of lines depiction of twins seen in a twin-screen
most powerful film I’d seen, ever…” and their tonality when printed as sound. format, emphasises the fractured and David Crosswaite, Choke
Peter Gidal, interview with Mark Her work Light Music is in a series of slightly disorientating view from Sally
Webber, 2001 ‘moveable sections’. The film does not Potter’s window in Play. somewhat cumbersome manner. Reworked into
“Malcolm said to me “Ideally in this film have a rigid pattern of sequences, and the David Parsons’ refilming of a stunt car PLAY a two-screen film and divorced from their orig-
there should be a real light bulb hanging final length is variable, within one-hour demonstration pulses between frames, inal context they take on both a sinister and
duration. The imagery is restricted to analytically transforming the motion into “In Play, Potter filmed six children –
next to the screen, but that’s not possi- humorous quality. Using similar techniques to
ble.” And I said “It’s not possible to hang lines of horizontal bars across the screen: a visceral mid-air dance. actually, three pairs of twins – as they the aforementioned films, the repetitive refilm-
there is variety in the spacing (frequen- Wind Vane was shot simultaneously by play on a sidewalk, using two cameras
a light bulb?” He said “Well, I don’t see ing of the original footage in short sections
cy), their thickness (amplitude), and their two cameras whose view was directed by mounted so that they recorded two con-
how we could possibly do this.” I said emphasised the process of film projection.
“Well the only question is how do we turn colour and density (tone). One section the wind. The gentle panning makes us tiguous spaces of the sidewalk. When Somewhat like a child’s game of two steps for-
was filmed from a video monitor that pro- subtly aware of the physical space (dis- Play is screened, two projectors present
it on and off at the right moments? … Are ward and one back, the viewer is made aware of
you able to do that as a live perform- duced line patterns on the screen that var- tance) between the adjacent frames. the two images side by side, recreating the staggered progress of the film through the
ance?” He looked at me like the world ied according to sound signals generated With a rock music soundtrack, Choke, the original sidewalk space, but, of gate. In sharp contrast to the almost strobo-
by an oscillator; so initially it is the sound suggests pop art in its treatment of course, with the interruption of the right
was going to end! And I said “The switch scopic flicker of the rapid movement of the
will be there.”” which produces the image. Taking this Piccadilly Circus at night. Multiply frame line of the left image and the left frames that alternate in small increments of
filmed material to the printing stage, the exposed and treated images mirror each frame line of the right image – that is, so
Jack Moore, interview with Mark light and dark exposures, the image takes on
Webber, 2001 same lines that produced the picture are other or travel across the two screens. that the sidewalk space is divided into new meanings; the distorted reality of two
printed onto the optical soundtrack edge Castle Two immediately throws the view- two filmic spaces. The cinematic division heavy objects (the cars, one on each of the
TAKE MEASURE of the film: the picture thus produces the er into a state of discomfort as one tries to of the original space is emphasized by the screens) ‘dancing’ lightly in space.”
sound. Other material was shot from a assess the situation, and then proceeds a fact that the left image was filmed in
“The thing that strikes me going into a rostrum camera filming black and white long, obscure and perplexing indoctrina- color, the right image in black and white.
David Parsons, 2002
cinema, because it is such a strange space grids, and here again at the printing stage, tion. “Is that coming through out there?” Indeed, the division is so obvious that
and it’s organized to allow you to get the picture is printed onto the film sound-
enveloped by the whole illusion of film, track. Sometimes the picture ‘zooms’ in
when you try and think of it in terms of on the grid, so that you actually ‘hear’ the
real dimensions it becomes very difficult. zoom, or more precisely, you hear an
The idea of a sixty foot throw or a hun- aural equivalent to the screen image. This
dred foot throw from the projector to the equivalence cannot be perfect, because
screen just doesn’t enter into the equa- the soundtrack reproduces the frame lines
tion. So I thought the idea of making a that you don’t see, and the film passes at
piece that made that distance between the even speed over the projector sound scan-
projector and the screen more tangible ner, but intermittently through the picture
was quite an interesting thing to do.” gate. Lis Rhodes avoids rigid scoring pro-
William Raban, interview with Mark cedures for scripting her films. This work
Webber, 2001 may be experienced (and was perhaps
conceived) as having a musical form, but
“Take Measure is usually the shortest of the process of composition depends on
my films, measuring in feet that intangi- various chance operations, and upon the
ble space separating screen from projec- intervention of the filmmaker upon the
tor box (which is counted on the screen film and film machinery. This is consis-
by the image of a film synchronizer). tent with the presentation where the film
Instead of being fed into the projector does not crystallize into one finished
from a reel, the film is strung between form. This is a strong work, possessing
projector and screen. When the film infinite variety within a tightly controlled
starts, the film snakes backwards through framework.”
the audience as it is consumed by the pro- William Raban, Perspectives on
jector.” British Avant-Garde Film catalogue,
William Raban, Perspectives on 1977
British Avant-Garde Film catalogue,
1977 “The film is not complete as a totality; it
could well be different and still achieve
DIAGONAL its purpose of exploring the possibilities
of optical sound. It is as much about
“Diagonal is a film for three projectors, sound as it is about image; their relation-
though the diagonally arranged projector ship is necessarily dependent as the opti-
beams need not be contained within a cal soundtrack ‘makes’ the music. It is the
 2 SHOOT SHOOT SHOOT
EDITORIAL WIND VANE
“At that time, the automatic gyros on sail-
SHOOT SHOOT SHOOT boats were run from a wind vane that was
In recent years, my activities as an independent attached through a series of mechanical
curator or programmer of ‘avant-garde’ film devices to the rudder. The wind vane
and video have put me into contact with many actually set itself to the wind and you
individuals and organisations around the adjusted all the gear and that then steered
world. Many people would ask me about the the boat in the particular orientation to
London Co-op and British filmmakers and I the wind. On various sailing trips, I’d
was embarrassed to have to admit that I didn’t been looking at this thing thinking,
know much about the cinematic heritage of “Hmm, that’s really interesting … I won-
this country. The constant enquiries about der if I could set a camera on something
British work made it clear that there was a sus- like that?” Because, for me the idea of a
tained interest in, and demand for, the films sailboat travelling from A to B was an
made in and around the London Film-Makers’ interesting sort of metaphor for the way
Co-op. that people interacted with nature. In sail-
ing, as you may know if you’ve done it,
Gregory Kurcewicz should be credited with you can’t just go from A to B, you have to
instigating the present project in 1999. Since adjust everything to which way the tide is
then it just grew and grew. During the early going, which way the wind’s going and
stages of research, the screenings organised by so on and so forth. Hopefully, eventually,
Felicity Sparrow as part of the Whitechapel’s you would get to B but, really, in between
exhibition “Live In Your Head” provided a time there would have been all sorts of
valuable opportunity to survey the field. At one other events that would affect that: speed
of those screenings I met Peter Mudie, who of tides, speed of wind, no wind, etc. So
had been working on an as-yet-unpublished that seemed to me to be an interesting
history of the Co-op. Peter generously gave me metaphor, so then I started building wind
an early draft of his manuscript, giving me vanes and attaching cameras to them…”
access to his years of research and interpreta- Chris Welsby, interview with Mark
tion. David Curtis gave me hours of his time Webber, 2001
and loaned me his archive of documentation
from the period (which is now available at the “The spatial exigencies of twin-screen
AHRB Study Centre). Meanwhile, I was projection become of primary importance
watching every British film the Lux held that in this film because the adjacency of the
was made during this period and going direct screen images is related to the adjacency
to filmmakers to discover and see the obscuri- of the filming technique: two cameras
ties and lost gems. were placed about 50 feet apart on tripods
which included wind vane attachments,
This project was conceived not only as anoth- so that the wind direction and speed
er historical film programme. The elements of determined the direction and speed of the
preservation and documentation were very pans of the two freely panning cameras.
important from the beginning. Many new The landscape images are more or less
prints, sound masters and internegatives have coincident, and the attempt by the specta-
been made, a publication is planned and a web- tor to visually conjoin the two spaces
site is being constructed as an online research (already conjoined on the screen) sets up
resource. In parallel to the exhibition, a docu- the primary tension of this film. As the
mentary on the Co-op is being made by John cameras pan, one expects an overlap
Wyver and Illuminations. between the screens (from one to another)
but gets only overlap in the screens (when
AGAINST INTERPRETATION they point to the same object). The adja-
It is not my intention to argue the historical cency of the two spaces is constantly
importance of these works, nor do I wish to set shifting from (almost) complete similari-
up a ‘canon’ of films by which this period ty of field to complete dissimilarity. And
should be measured. I see my role more that of within the dissimilarity of space can be
an excavator, looking around, finding some- more or less contiguous. The shrewd
thing interesting and getting it out there so choice of a representational image which
people can see it and make their own minds up. exploits the twin-screen format is
I have tried to appear transparent, but Welsby’s strength.”
inevitably the choice of films in such an exhi- Deke Dusinberre, “On Expanding
bition must be informed to some extent by per- Cinema”, Studio International,
sonal taste. I regret that many works have been November/December 1975
left out despite attempts to be objective and
inclusive. I was born in 1970 on the day the CHOKE
First International Underground Film Festival
began at the NFT. I hope that I have brought a “Choke was made from 8mm footage that
different perspective on a period that has not I had blown up to 16mm. It was colour
recently been reviewed. film I took of the Coca-Cola sign in
Piccadilly Circus, which is now vastly
FILM AS FILM different. I think that it was the fact that
It’s refreshing, in this time of new media feed- this expanded film thing was happening,
ing frenzy, to be reminded of the wondrous and Malcolm would’ve said, “Well, aren’t
virtues of film, a medium that is often now you going to make any double screen
seen as an archaic, old-fashioned and out- films, then?” and I said “Can do, yeah”! I
dated. Here are works made on film, by artists, just had this idea of using this image that
because no other medium suits their purpose. I had, and again started painstakingly
Beneath the surface of each is an underlying sello-taping little cuttings onto film so it
‘human-ness’, an inherent tactility and tran- tracked across the screen in certain parts.
sience. You can feel these films, that each one I must have been an absolute glutton for
has been crafted and fashioned into form by punishment at the time.”
hand. The unique characteristics and possibili- David Crosswaite, interview with
ties of film are brought forward during the Mark Webber, 2001
realisation of the work, where the artistic
process begins at the inception of an idea and “… But nevertheless you get characters
goes right through to its projection. like Crosswaite, whose films I find
absolutely magical, I think they’re the
THE PRESENT SITUATION most seminal works of the whole Co-op
That Shoot Shoot Shoot should finally become period. He certainly didn’t engage in the
visible in London at this time seems incredible arguments that were going on, he stood
timely, so much so that the project was almost aloof from it. In fact he would the erode
halted just as it began to move into the final attempts of that hierarchical thing, his
planning stages. The closure of the Lux Centre, presence eroded it. He never really
engaged in the theoretical arguments, the
which managed the exhibition, in November
polemics, at all, but nevertheless he pro-
2001 would have ended Shoot Shoot Shoot if it
duced the most seminal, the most beauti-
were not for the foolhardy persistence of Ben
Cook and myself. The events that led up to the ful work probably of the period. He cer-
Lux crisis are indicative of the lack of appro- tainly wasn’t excluded, and he was
priate planning, support and resources allocat- always there to deflate this idea of exclu-
ed to artists’ film and video in London (or the sivity. He refuses to engage. He would
UK as a whole) in recent years. Despite early just say, “Here’s my film” … and yet they
commitment of substantial funding from the are beautifully polemical, they’re just
Arts Council of England’s National Touring extraordinary pieces or work.
Programme and the British Council, for which Roger Hammond, interview with
I am truly grateful, this project (and others like Mark Webber, 2001
it) has been hindered by the lack of institution-
al or organisational support. Perhaps the cur- CASTLE TWO
rent review led by the London funding agen-
cies will improve matters, and in the meantime “This film continues the theme of the
the gap is being filled by independent screen- military/industrial complex and its psy-
ings. Maybe the interest shown in experimen- chological impact upon the individual
tal film by a new generation will impel the that I began with Castle One. Like Castle
major arts bodies to invest in the venues, the One, much use is made of newsreel mon-
prints and the production facilities that make tage, although with entirely different
up this unique ‘essential’ cinema. material. The film is more evidently the-
matic, but still relies on formal devices –
THE ABSENT CATALOGUE building up to a fast barrage of images
Much of the work done over the past two years (the two screens further split – to give 4
has been towards assembling materials for a separate images at once for one
publication and the launch of the film pro- sequence). The images repeat themselves
gramme was the logical opportunity to publish in different sequential relationships and
this research. A vast quantity of archival docu- certain key images emerge both in the
mentation has been gathered, and many new soundtrack and the visual. The alienation
interviews have been conducted. Essays have of the viewer’s involvement does not
been commissioned from David Curtis, Barry occur as often in this film as in Castle
Miles, Michael O’Pray and Al Rees. Lack of One, but the concern with the viewer’s
funds have forced us to sacrifice the book in experience of his present location still
favour of film print costs. The proposed cata- determines the structure of certain pas-
logue will now be compiled as a separate book, sages in the film.”
to be completed when funds become available. Malcolm Le Grice, London Film-
It will hopefully benefit form the new insight Makers’ Co-operative catalogue, 1968
and understanding of the works which should
come with the revival and re-viewing of the “Le Grice’s work induces the observer to
films and the discussions they will provoke. Inparticipate by making him reflect critical-
the meantime, I hope this special broadsheet ly not only on the formal properties of
will provide some background information for film but also on the complex ways in
the screenings. I am still collecting photos, which he perceives that film within the
stills, documentation and information, so limitations of the environment of its pro-
jection and the limitations created by his
please get in touch if you might be able to help.
own past experience. A useful formula-
Mark Webber tion of how this sort of feedback occurs is
shoot@lfmc.org contained in the notion of ‘perceptual
thresholds’. Briefly, a perceptual thresh-
old is demarcation point between what is
consciously and what is pre-consciously
perceived. The threshold at which one is
able to become conscious of external
stimuli is a variable that depends on the
speed with which the information is
being projected, the emotional charge it
contains and the general context within
which that information is presented. This
explains Le Grice’s continuing use of
devices such as subliminal flicker and the
looped repetition of sequences in a stag-
gered series of changing relationships.”
John Du Cane, Time Out, 1977
* * * GLOUCESTER ROAD
LONDON UNDERGROUND
As equipment became available for little
cost, avant-garde film flourished in mid-
60s counter-culture. Early screenings at
Better Books and the Arts Lab provided a
vital focus for a new movement that
infused Swinging London with a fresh “I felt really high with all these people
subversive edge. around. I was kind of a provincial film
placed a contact mike on the floor to pick
up the beat of a motor (rhythm) driving a
CLOCKTIME TRAILER magic. It possesses this sense in its abili-
ty to capture life; to capture movement
student and the youngest of everyone and circular saw (musical note) while it was “A time truncation film trailer for the and to fracture time and space. The main
Made independently on 35mm, in collab- there were fashion photographers, David being used to saw up books (percussion rather long film called Clocktime. Film characteristics of magic are its indirect
oration with William Burroughs, Towers Larcher who was very glamorous, there and bending note). The film reaches a made as a totally systematic stream of reference to the culture, and to the past
Open Fire is rarely considered in histo- was Simon Hartog who was kind of intel- tremendous climax as the increasingly hitherto unrelated events welded together and its derivation from very specific emo-
ries of avant-garde film, despite its exper- tional experiences. Magic’s base is those
iments in form and representation. It emotional experiences where the truth of
combines strobe cutting, flicker, degrad- the experience is not revealed by reason-
ed imagery and hand-painted film to cre- ing, but by the interplay of these emo-
ate a visual equivalent to the author’s nar- tions on the individual human…”
ration. Simon Hartog & Stephen Dwoskin,
Gloucester Road Groove, featuring “New Cinema”, Counter Culture: The
Simon Hartog and David Larcher, is a Creation of an Alternative Society, 1969
spirited celebration of youthful exuber-
ance, the excitement of shooting with a “Soul in a White Room was filmed by
movie camera. Simon Hartog around autumn 1968.
Jeff Keen’s vision is a uniquely British Music on the soundtrack is “Cousin Jane”
post-war accumulation of art history, by The Troggs. The man is Omar Diop-
comic books, old Hollywood and new Blondin, the woman I don’t recall her
collage. Positioned between happenings name. Omar was a student active in 1968
and music hall, he performs dada actions during “les evenement de Mai et de Juin”
in the “theatre of the brain”. Marvo at the Faculte de Nanterre, Universite de
Movie is just one of countless works that Paris. Around this time, Godard was in
mix live action with animation, but is London shooting Sympathy for the Devil
notable for its concrete sound by Co-op / One Plus One with the Stones and Omar
co-founder Bob Cobbing. was here for that too, appearing with
Speak, with hypnotic flashing discs and Frankie Y (Frankie Dymon) and the other
relentless noise track, anticipated many Black Panthers in London ... maybe
of the anti-illusionist arguments that the Michael X too. After returning to
Co-op later embodied. The film was Senegal, Omar was imprisoned and killed
made in 1962, but its advanced radical in custody in ’71 or ’72. I believe his fate
nature made it largely unknown until later is well known to the Senegalese people.”
screenings at Better Books brought Jonathan Langran, interview with
Latham into contact with like-minded Mark Webber, 2002
contemporaries.
In Dirty, Dwoskin accentuates the dirt HALL
and scratches on the film’s surface while
interrogating the erotic imagery through “Hall manages, in its ten minutes, to put
refilming. our perception to a rather strenuous test.
The systematic cutting of Stuart Pound’s Gidal will hold a static shot for quite a
film, and its cyclical soundtrack, derives long time, and then make very quick cuts
from a mathematical process that con- to objects seen at closer range. There is
denses a feature length work (Clocktime just a hallway and a room partially visible
I-IV) into a short ‘trailer’. beyond, pictures (one of Godard) on a
Soul in a White Room is a subtle piece of Anthony Balch, Towers Open Fire wall, fruit on a table, and so forth. The
social commentary by Simon Hartog, an commonplace is rendered almost monot-
early Co-op activist with a strong politi- onous as we become increasingly famil-
cal conscience. lectual … all sorts of people, wonderful harsh whine of the electric saw combines into a colour interchange frame i.e. image iar with it from a fixed and sustained
Peter Gidal questions illusory depth and women that would come around, friends, with the frenetic sequence of images and (1), image (2), image (3)… repeat time viewpoint, and then we are disoriented by
representation through focal length, edit- and I was always in awe of them and we flashes of light.” cycle. 6 frames, 1/4 second, then images the closer cuts and also by the sudden
ing and (seeming) repetition in Hall. used to go out to restaurants and that was John A. Walker, John Latham – The move further along their original time prolonged ringing of an alarm. But even
Reign of the Vampire, from Le Grice’s all a very big thing for me. So one Incidental Person – His Art and Ideas, base; a very linear film.” at the point of abrupt disorientation we
paranoiac How to Screw the C.I.A., or evening we went to Dino’s in Gloucester 1995 London Film-Makers’ Co-operative remain conscious of the manipulation
How to Screw the C.I.A.? series, takes the Road and I took the camera. I think I’d distribution catalogue, 1977 applied.”
hard line in subversion. Familiar “threat- been using it all day, I just liked cameras DIRTY Gordon Gow, “Focus on 16mm”,
ening” signifiers, pornography and and I filmed us going to eat, and we came “I wasn’t particularly interested in mak- Films and Filming, August 1971
footage from his other films is overlaid back again, and I still kept filming! “Dirty is remarkable for its sensuousness, ing films about poetry but films that had
with travelling mattes, united with a loop Gloucester Road was kind of cosmopoli- created partly by the use of rephotogra- got quite a strong sexual charge. For “Demystified reaction by the viewer to a
soundtrack, to form a relentless assault. tan, late at night… it was exotic, very phy which enables the filmmaker a sec- instance, in Clocktime Trailer there’s a demystified situation; a cut in space and
exotic, it wasn’t your dour kind of thing ond stage of response to the two girls he woman in it who used to work for the an interruption of duration through (obvi-
Antony Balch, Towers Open Fire, 1963, shot at 5 o’clock or 6 o’clock, Gloucester was filming, partly by the caressing style Other Cinema years ago – Julia ous) jumpcut editing within a strictly
b/w, sound, 16m Road was buzzing.” of camera movement and partly by the Meadows. I was absolutely fascinated defined space. Manipulation of response
Jonathan Langran, Gloucester Road Jonathan Langran, interview with gradual increase of dirt on the film itself, with her, it was almost like having sex and awareness thereof: through repetition
Groove, 1968, b/w, silent, 2m Mark Webber, 2002 increasing the tactile connotations gener- through the lens of the camera. I have and duration of image. Film situation as
Jeff Keen, Marvo Movie, 1967, colour, ated by rephotography. The spontaneity now seen Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom, structured, as recorrective mechanism.
sound, 5m MARVO MOVIE of Dwoskin’s response to the girls’ sensu- but I’d not seen that at the time. It came (Notes from 1969) Still utilizing at that
John Latham, Speak, 1962, colour, al play is matched by the spontaneity of out about 1960, here was such a hoo-hah time potent (signifying, overloaded) rep-
sound, 11m “Movie wizard initiates shatterbrain his response to the film of their play. The about it and I was only about 16. resentations. (1972)”
Stephen Dwoskin, Dirty, 1965-67, b/w, experiment – Eeeow! – the fastest movie rhythms of the girls’ movements are Subsequently when I saw it I was: “Oh Peter Gidal, London Film-makers’
sound, 10m film alive – at 24 or 16fps even the mind blended with the rhythms of the primary my god”. I could see how I was a real Co-operative distribution catalogue, 1974
Stuart Pound, Clocktime Trailer, 1972, trembles – splice up sequence 2 – flix and secondary stage camera movements menace!”
colour, sound, 7m unlimited, and inside yr very head the and these rhythms relate to the steady Stuart Pound, interview with Mark “In Hall, extremely stable, normally
Simon Hartog, Soul In A White Room, images explode – last years models new pulse emanating from the center of the Webber, 2001 reproduced objects are given clear from
1968, colour, sound, 3.5m houses & such terrific death scenes while image as a result of the different projector the beginning, the editing, moreover,
Peter Gidal, Hall, 1968-69, b/w, sound, the time and space operator attacks the and camera speeds during rephotography. SOUL IN A WHITE ROOM reducing the distance from which they
10m brain via the optic nerve – will the opera- The soundtrack successfully prevents the are seen, cutting in to show and to detail
Malcolm Le Grice, Reign Of The tion succeed – will the white saint reach awareness of audience noise (the “Films are not bombs. No cultural object, them, repetition then undercutting their
Vampire, 1970, b/w, sound, 11m in time the staircase now alive with blood inevitable distraction of silent cinema) by as such, can have such a direct and meas- simple identification; the second time
– only time will tell says the movie mas- filling the aural space, but not drawing urable effect on the physical universe. around, a bowl of fruit cannot be seen as
(Total running time approximately 75m) ter – meanwhile deep inside the space attention to itself. You tend not to notice Film works in the more ambiguous a bowl of fruit, but must be seen as an
museum…” it after a while and can therefore concen- sphere of art and ideas. It cannot change image in a film process, detached from
trate on what is most importantly a visu- the world, but it can change those who any unproblematic illusion of presence,
al-feel film.” can change it. Film makes use of values as a production in the film, a mark of the
John Du Cane, Time Out, 1971 that exist within a culture, and a society’s presence of that.”
culture is more pervasive than its politics. Stephen Heath, “Repetition Time”,
“The refilming enabled the actions of the The alteration, or even the questioning of Wide Angle, 1978
two girls to be emphasized to convey the existing value is the alteration of society.
tension and beauty of such a simple and The established cultural hierarchy main- REIGN OF THE VAMPIRE
emphatic gesture as a hand reaching out: tains itself by protecting and enforcing
the ideas that keep it in power. Anything “It was about trying to get a mental posi-
frozen, and then moving slowly, then tion which defied the way in which the
that attacks, questions, or provides new
freezing, then moving again, and all the values is a threat. The culture allows only then-C.I.A. was kind of intervening in the
while creating tension and space before that which will not challenge its assump- world. But it was more, not a joke, but an
the contact. The refilming was done on a tions; everything else must be forced icon title. I suppose it said to me and to
small projector and this enabled me to underground. Film, as a cultural and other people, “Make your barb against
capture the pulsing (cycles) of the projec- social activity, contains within itself a the C.I.A.” A lot of my early work, all
tor light, which gave off a throbbing potential for change. Besides the great that aggressive work, has a political para-
rhythm throughout, and increased the reporting and recording qualities of film, noia about it: the idea that there are hid-
mood of sensuality.” which provide it with a direct reference to den forces of the military-industrial
the culture, it also provides the sense of establishment, which are manipulating us
Stephen Dwoskin, Film Is…, 1975
Simon Hartog, Soul in a White Room
TOWERS OPEN FIRE Ray Durgnat, London Film-Makers’
Co-operative distribution catalogue, 1968
“Towers Open Fire is a straight-forward
attempt to find a cinematic equivalent for “I was never part of the early 70s scene
William Burroughs’ writing: a collage of among the independent filmmakers –
all the key themes and situations in the very much anti-American, anti-
books, accompanied by a Burroughs Hollywood. ‘Industrial Cinema’ they
soundtrack narration. Society crumbles used to call it, which is true, but I never
as the Stock Exchange crashes, members felt that antipathy towards commercial
of the Board are raygun-zapped in their cinema. It was awful being a fucking mis-
own boardroom, and a commando in the fit, I can tell you. I’d done my footsol-
orgasm attack leaps through a window diering for the communist party and
and decimates a family photo collec- everything in those days – factory gates
tion… Meanwhile, the liberated individ- and all that shit, “ban the bomb”… So by
ual acts: Balch himself masturbates (“sil- the time of 1970, I’d got out of that. As
ver arrow through the night…”), for sexual liberation, I’d been happily
Burroughs as the junkie (his long-stand- married! And the drug scene didn’t mean
ing metaphor for the capitalist supply- anything to me because I’m puritanical.
and-demand situation) breaks on through I’m a misfit.”
to the hallucinatory world of Brion Gysin Jeff Keen, interview with Mark
Dream Machines. Balch lets us stare into Webber, 2001
the Dream Machines, finding faces to
match our own. “Anything that can be SPEAK
done chemically can be done by other
means.” So the film is implicitly a chal- “Latham’s second attack on the cinema.
lenge to its audience. But we’re playing Not since Len Lye’s films in the thirties
with indefinables that we don’t really has England produced such a brilliant
understand yet, and so Mikey Portman’s example of animated abstraction. Speak
music-hall finale is interrupted by sci- is animated in time rather than space. It is
ence-fiction attack from the skies, as lostan exploration in the possibilities of a cir-
boardroom reports drift through the coun- cle which speaks in colour with blinding
tryside…” volume. Speak burns its way directly into
Tony Rayns, “Interview with Antony the brain. It is one of the few films about
Balch”, Cinema Rising No.1, April 1972 which it can truly be said, “it will live in
your mind.””
“Installations shattered – Personnel deci- Ray Durgnat, London Film-Makers’
mated – Board Books destroyed – Co-operative distribution catalogue, 1968
Electronic waves of resistance sweeping
through mind screens of the earth – The “In 1966 Pink Floyd were playing their
message of Total Resistance on short free-form, experimental rock at the
wave of the world – This is war to exter- Talbot Road Tabernacle (a church hall),
mination – Shift linguals – Cut word lines Powis Square, Notting Hill Gate. On sev-
– Vibrate tourists – Free doorways – eral occasions, Latham projected his film
Photo falling – Word falling – Break Speak as the group played. Since the film
through in grey room – Calling Partisans had a powerful flicker effect, the result
of all nations – Towers, open fire” was equivalent to strobe lighting. Film
William Burroughs, Nova Express, and music ran in parallel – there was no
1964 planned synchronization. Thinking to
combine movie and music more system-
atically, Latham asked Pink Floyd to sup-
GROOVE ply a soundtrack. The band agreed and a
recording session took place. The artist
“A film for children and savages, easily explained that he wanted music that
understood, non didactic fantasies. Urban would take account of the strong, rhyth-
landscapes…Strolling single frames.” mical pulse of the film. This the acid rock
Jonathan Langran, London Film- group proved unable or unwilling to pro-
Makers’ Co-operative distribution cata- vide; consequently, the association was
logue, 1977 terminated. A soundtrack was eventually
added to one print of Speak: Latham

from within that power. Obviously, they
were – people were having their tele-
phones tapped though I don’t suppose for
one minute that my telephone was inter-
esting enough to tap. Reign of the
Vampire is that kind of paranoid film. It’s
a hovercraft that comes in, but it could
easily be a tank with the army getting out
of it … The idea of a military force that
can sneak in somewhere, and the comput-
er images. Threshold is in similar territo-
ry, about the borders and so on but very
abstract. It’s about that hidden sense of
force.”
Malcolm Le Grice, interview with
Mark Webber, 2001
“The film is made from six loops in pairs
(simple superimposition, but made by
printing through both loops together
rather than in two runs following each
other, the effect of this is largely to elim-
inate the transparent aspect of superimpo-
sition). In content, the film comes near to
being a synthesis of the How to Screw the
C.I.A. or How to Screw the C.I.A.? series;
it draws on pieces of film from the other
films, and combines these with the most
‘disturbing’ of the images which I have
collected. It also relates to the
‘dream’/fluid association sequence in
Castle Two; it is a kind of on-going
under-consciousness which repeats and
does not resolve into any semantic conse-
quence. One of the factors of the use of
the loop, which interests me particularly,
is the way in which the viewer’s aware-
ness undergoes a gradual transformation
from the semantic/associative to the
abstract/formal, even though the ‘infor-
mation’ undergoes only limited change.
The sound has a similar kind of loop/rep-
etition structure.”
Malcolm Le Grice, How to Screw the
C.I.A. or How to Screw the C.I.A.? pro-
gramme notes, 1970
* * * Hammond sets up a situation which is
STRUCTURAL / MATERIALIST
The enquiry into the material of film as
film itself was an essential characteristic
of the Co-op’s output. These non- and
anti- narrative concerns were fundamen-
tally argued by the group’s principal
practising theorists Malcolm Le Grice
and Peter Gidal.
In explaining their (quite different) ideas
in some erudite but necessarily dense
texts Le Grice and Gidal have in some
ways contributed to misunderstandings of
this significant tendency in the British
avant-garde. (For example, It is not the
case, as is often proposed, that films were
made to justify their theories.)
Le Grice was instrumental in acquiring,
installing and operating the equipment at
the Co-op workshop that afforded film-
makers the hands-on opportunity to
investigate the film medium. His own
work developed through direct process-
ing, printing and projection, providing an
understanding of the material with which
he could examine filmic time through
duration, while touching on spectacle and
narrative.
By contrast, Gidal’s cool, oppositional
stance was refined to refute narrative and
representation, denying illusion and
manipulation though visual codes. His
uncompromising position resists all
expectations of cinema, even modernist
formalism and abstraction. The artistic
and theoretical relationship of these two
poles of the British avant-garde, who
were united in opposing ‘dominant cine-
ma’, is a complex set of divergences and
intersections.
Originally intended as a test strip, the first
film produced at the Dairy on the Co-op
step-printer was Shepherd’s Bush, in
which an obscure loop of abstract footage
relentlessly advances from dark to light.
The two short films by Roger Hammond
and Mike Dunford concisely encapsulate
SHOOT SHOOT SHOOT 3
an idea; while Window Box exploits the SHEPHERD’S BUSH FILM NO. 1 certain relations between segments,
viewer’s anticipation of camera move- between what the camera is aimed at and
ment and shrewdly transforms a seeming- “Shepherd’s Bush was a revelation. It was “Film No. 1 is a ten minute loop film. The the way that ‘image’ is presented. The
ly conventional viewpoint, the perma- both true film notion and demonstrated systems of superimposed loops are math- dialectic of the film is established in that
nence of the cinematic frame is the focus an ingenious association with the film- ematically interrelated in a complex man- space of tension between materialist flat-
of Tautology’s brief enquiry. process. It is the procedure and conclu- ner. The starting and cut-off points for ness, grain, light, movement, and the sup-
By translating footage across different sion of a piece of film logic using a bril- each loop are not clearly exposed, but posed reality that is represented.
gauges, Crosswaite and Le Grice explore liantly simple device; the manipulation of through repetitions of sequences in dif- Consequently, a continual attempt to
variations in film formats: Film No. 1 the light source in the Film Co-op printer ferent colours, in different material reali- destroy the illusion is necessary. In
uses permutations and combinations of such that a series of transformations are ties (i.e. negative, positive, bas-relief, Structural/Materialist film, the in/film
unsplit 8mm, while Little Dog for Roger effected on a loop of film material. From neg/pos overlay) yet in a constant rhythm (not in/frame) and film/viewer material
directly prints 9.5mm home movies onto the start Mike Leggett adopts a relational (both visually and on the soundtrack relations, and the relations of the film’s
16mm stock. perspective according to which it is nei- hum), one is manipulated to attempt to structure, are primary to any representa-
In Key, Gidal plays on the ambiguity of ther the elements or the emergent whole work out the system-structure. One tional content. The structuring aspects
an image to challenge and refute the but the relations between the elements relates to the repetitions in such a way and the attempt to decipher the structure
observer’s interpretation of it, while (transformations) that become primary that one concentrates on working out the and anticipate/recorrect it, to clarify and
intensifying disorientation through his through the use of logical procedure. All serial formula while visually experienc- analyze the production-process of the
manipulation of the soundtrack. of Mike Leggett’s films call for special ing (and enjoying) the film at the same specific image at any specific moment,
Du Cane’s Zoom Lapse comprises dense effort from the audience, and a passive time. One of the superimposed loops is are the root concern of
multiple overlays of imagery, vibrating audience expecting to be manipulated made of alternating mattes, so that the Structural/Materialist film. The specific
the moment, while Eatherley’s Deck re- will indeed find them difficult for they screen is broken up into four more or less construct of each specific film is not the
photographs a reel of 8mm film, which seek a unique correspondence; one that equal rectangles of which, at any one relevant point; one must beware not to let
undergoes a mysterious transformation calls for real attention, interaction, and moment, two or three are blocked out the construct, the shape, take the place of
through refilming, colour changing and anticipation/correction, a change for the (matted). The matte-positioning is rhyth- the ‘story’ in narrative film. Then one
printing. audience from being a voyeur to being mically structured, thus allowing each of would merely be substituting one hierar- Gill Eatherley, Deck
that of a participant.” the two represented images to flickering- chy for another within the same system, a
Roger Hammond, Window Box, 1971, Roger Hammond, London Film- ly appear in only one frame-corner at a formalism for what is traditionally called “The strategy of minimizing content to DECK
b/w, silent, 3m (18fps) Makers Co-operative distribution cata- time. This rhythm powerfully strengthens content. This is an absolutely crucial intensify the perception of film as a plas-
Mike Leggett, Shepherd’s Bush, 1971, logue supplement, 1972 the film’s existence as selective reality point.” tic strip of frames is explicitly demon- “During a voyage by boat to Finland, the
b/w, sound, 15m manipulated by the filmmaker and Peter Gidal, “Theory and Definition camera records three minutes of black
strated in Le Grice’s seminal Little Dog
David Crosswaite, Film No. 1, 1971, “The process of film-making should exposed as such. The mattes are slightly of Structural/Materialist Film”, Structural and white 8mm of a woman sitting on a
colour, sound, 10m emphasise the imaginative, and the con- ‘off’; there is no perfect mechanical fit, Film Anthology, 1976 For Roger. Here the 9.5mm ‘found-
bridge. The preoccupation of the film is
Mike Dunford, Tautology, 1973, b/w, tact between film-maker and spectator so that the process of the physical matte- footage’ of a boy and his dog is repeated-
with the base and with the transformation
silent, 5m should become more direct. Shepherd’s construction by the filmmaker is con- ZOOM LAPSE ly pulled through the 16mm printer; the
Peter Gidal, Key, 1968, colour, sound, Bush was made through a process con- stantly noticeable, as one matte (at times of this material, which was first refilmed
varying speed and swaying motion of the on a screen where it was projected by
10m trary to the generally accepted method of of different hue or different colour) “If I had to compare my work with anoth-
John Du Cane, Zoom Lapse, 1975, making a film. It was without a script, original filmstrip ironically allude to the multiple projectors at different speeds
blends over the edge of the matte next to er activity, I would first point to two relat-
colour, silent, 15m without a camera, without the complicat- it (horizontally or vertically). The film constant speed and rigid registration of and then secondly amplified with colour
ed musics: Reggae and certain West
Malcolm Le Grice, Little Dog For Roger, ed route through task delegation. The deals with permutations of material, in a the 16mm film we are watching, and filters, using postive and negative ele-
1967, b/w, sound, 13m entity of the film was conceived through prescribed manner, but one by no means African music. If I had to label my work,
develop a tension between our knowledge ments and superimposition on the
Gill Eatherley, Deck, 1971, colour, the reappraisal of a Debrie Matipo step- necessary or logical (except within the I would choose a term radically opposed
of the static frames which comprise the London Co-op’s optical printer.”
sound, 13m contact printer. Designed such that with film’s own constructed system/serial). to ‘Structural’. I would say that I made
filmstrip and the illusion of continuous Gill Eatherley, Light Cone distribu-
precise control of the light reaching the The process of looping a given image is ‘Ecstatic Cinema’ … I would like to think
(Total running time approximately 81m) print stock after having passed through motion with which it is imbued. The use tion catalogue, 1997
already using film for its structural and that the ecstatic is our birthright and to
filters, aperture band and the negative, it abstract power rather than for a conven- remember that ecstasy has many dimen- of ‘found-footage’ and of repetition –
was possible to demonstrate the gradual tional narrative or ‘content’. But it is the “Deck was shot on Standard 8, black and
sions: we know that, from the Greek, we which threatens endlessness, though this
WINDOW BOX way in which the projection screen could superimposition of the black mattes white, on a boat going from Sweden to
are talking about ‘a standing outside’ of is a relatively short film – owe some-
turn from black to white. First, a suitable which gives the film its extremely rich Finland on a trip to Russia. And then I
oneself. This is meditation. And in the thing to the ‘pop’ aesthetic then domi-
“In the small masterpiece Window Box, image on an existing piece of positive texture, and which separates it from so
process of meditation, both rapture and a
just filmed it off the screen at St Martin’s,
nant, but the spectator is never permitted put some colour on it, and turned it
deep peace can co-exist. If my films work
mystified in its presentation, and yet at to complacently enjoy these found- upside-down … Just turned it upside-
the same time demands of (and allows) as intended, they will help you into ecsta-
down and put some sound on. The sound
images; the graininess and under-illumi-
the viewer to demystify the given visual sy, and they will do this by satisfying in a
nation, the negative sequences and came off a radio – just fiddling around
impulses. The situation presented polymorphic manner. The films are very
upside-down passages are designed not with a radio and a microphone, just in-
includes thus within its own premises the physical, they are polyrhythmic and they
objective factors which determine the so much to add variation as to continu- between stations. It was one of the
are patterned in a manner designed to cre-
possibility and probability of successful longest films I’ve ever made and that kind
ate a very definite way of seeing, of expe- ously render those simple images difficult
analysis. The criteria one uses to evalu- of frightened me a little bit. I thought it
riencing. I intend my films to jump out at to decipher, thus stressing that very act of
ate, interpret, are secondary to this con- would be too long, you know, 13 minutes
you from their dark spaces, their gaps, decoding. The relentless asceticising of
ceptually-determined process of working was quite a long time. Most of my films
their elisions, to vibrate in your whole the image became a major preoccupation
out what is. We are taken into a post-log- are only three minutes, six minutes, eight
ical empiricism which realizes the sensu- being in the very manner and rhythm of in subsequent British avant-garde film- minutes … but it could have gone on
al strength of illusion which at the same felt experience. The magic of film for me
making.” longer maybe…”
time using precisely that to refer to preci- is the possibility to portray these complex
Deke Dusinberre, Perspectives on Gill Eatherley, interview with Mark
sion of information. The opposite of interlacings unfolding through time. You
Cartesian in its in-built negation of any British Avant-Garde catalogue, 1977 Webber, 2001
can watch one of my films, and see two
aspect outside of the given system. films simultaneously; one of my mind
Hammond is non-atomistic, non-referen- and one of yours. I say film of ‘my mind’,
tial within a specific, set-up, and defined
but what I want to emphasise, because the
closed system. Thus, a pure attitude.
films emphasise it, is that is a film of my
Hammond is purifying the conceptual
and non-psychological aspect of his work Mike Leggett, Shepherd’s Bush being. The last thing I want my films to
to the point where it increasingly repre- be is a purely mental event. This would
sents his calculable mental system: the stock was found with which to produce a many other, less complex, loop-type be to deny a large part of the spectrum of
nonreferential structural obligation. He master negative. The shot was only ten films. Crosswaite works, in this film, the film.”
does not create a whole system, however; seconds in length but contained a range with two basic images: Piccadilly at night John Du Cane, “Statement on
rather, he deciphers one.” of tones from one end of the grey scale to and a shape which suggests at moments a Watching My Films: A Letter from John
Peter Gidal, “Directory of UK the other. It was loaded into the printer as 3-D close-up of a flowerlike organic
Du Cane”, Undercut 13, 1984-85
Independent Film-Makers”, Cinema a loop, and subsequently a print which growth or a Matisse-like abstract 2-D
Rising No. 1, April 1972 repeated the action was made from the cutout. Depending on the colour dye of
negative. Only part of the viewer’s atten- the particular film-segment and the posi- “I was interested in film as a sculptural
“Roger Hammond’s movies are short tion should be taken with the perception tive/negative interchange, the object medium, and as a way to have the viewer
studies of apparently simple of the figurative image on the screen. It changes shading and constanyly re-forms be more aware of his viewing process, of
subjects…they induce a tight awareness should however, be dynamic enough to from one dimension to the other, while his consciousness. My films were medita-
of how these relations can be radically warrant careful inspection should the shifting our perceptions from its reality as tive at a time when that phrase wasn’t a
transformed by subtle shifts in film viewer’s attention turn to it. A thirty- 3-dimensional re-presentation to its reali- popular term to use, but most of the films
process; shifts of light value, angle, minute version was made first, but on ty as cutout filling the film-frame with were designed to reflect the viewer back
movement, framing, etc… The illusions viewing was judged too long, so for the jagged edged blackness.”
on themself. I also usually wanted my
of cinema as they bend our conscious- next version half this length was judged Peter Gidal, NFT English
films to be very physical experiences, I
ness, become the focus of our attention. correct. A soundtrack was made match- Independent Cinema programme notes,
wanted to make the experience work on
In Window Box, a simple subject takes on ing in audio terms the perceptible 1972
multiple dimensions in a ghostly world changes in visual quality not usually really all of the main levels of energy; the
created by the process of rephotograph- encountered within the environment of TAUTOLOGY physical, the intellectual and the aspects
ing projected negative footage. There is a the cinema. This film realized total con- of awareness that we associate with con-
gentle reminder in this process in the trol over the making of a film, from selec- “Regarding the in-built tautological sciousness. In Zoom Lapse I was also
framing of the eventual image, which tion of the original camera stock, through aspects of perceptual structuring. Since interested in working with the way we
incorporates in its composition a horizon- exposure, processing, printing, process- refuted.” perceive time and space as it can be
tal bar of light from the wall from which ing, projection, cataloguing, and distribu- Mike Dunford, London Film-Makers’
manipulated through the camera. Of
the film is being rephotographed.” tion.” Co-operative distribution catalogue, 1977
Mike Leggett, excerpts from unpub- course part of the content of this film had
John Du Cane, Time Out, 1971 to do with the camera’s ability to squeeze
lished notes, 1972 “Each time I make a film I see it as a kind
of hypothesis, or a questioning statement, our perspective through the process of
rather than a flat assertion of any particu- zooming in and zooming out on a partic-
lar form or idea… Each film is a film ular area. In the making of the film I actu-
experiment in the sense that the most ally lapsed the zoom process, so that I
attractive features are those that work… would shoot a single frame that had a
My films are not about ideas, or aesthet- zoom within it, and sequences in the film
ics, or systems, or mathematics, but are
that were more extended zooms, so I took
about film, film-making, and film-view-
ing, and the interaction and intervention a very simple shot. I was living on a canal
of intentive self-conscious reasoning in Hamburg in a kind of romantic, old
activity in that context.” warehouse district, about all that was left
Mike Dunford, 2nd International after the bombing of the city. There was
Avant-Garde Festival programme notes, an old set of warehouse windows across
1973 the way and so I was interested in explor-
ing the ways that you could squeeze
“Its pretty obvious isn’t it? That’s the space and watch the relationships
kind of film that me and Roger
between your time perception and your
Hammond talked about. It’s because we
actually spent quite a bit of time hanging perception of space and how the two
out in the Co-op, processing things and interact. There’s a process in the film, that
talking about ideas. He’d read Derrida happens in many of my other films,
and all that kind of stuff, and as a result I where I want the viewer to be pretty con-
read some of it too. And that’s how I scious that what they’re seeing is not
would have got to make something like something that exists on the celluloid,
Tautology, by talking to someone like that there’s a way they’re manufacturing
him A very simple idea, simply done; it
does one thing and that’s all it does.”
Mike Dunford, interview with Mark
Webber, 2001
KEY
“… an enclosed and progressive disem-
bowelment of durational progression. He
draws out singularities … he allows the
camera only a fenced in area, piecemeal.
He lets the gaze hold on objects and con-
stantly repeats … this permits the possi- John Du Cane, Zoom Lapse
bilities of the discrepancies between
one’s own seeing and seeing with the in the viewing process. The film should
camera to become distinct, and this in very obviously be something that if you
turn allows for a completely different come back and watch it a second, third,
experience of the surroundings.” fourth, fifth time you’re not really going
Birgit Hein, Film Im Underground, to see the same thing because the eye is
1971 creating sets of images that don’t actual-
ly exist.”
“Structural/Materialist film attempts to
be non-illusionist. The process of the John Du Cane, interview with Mark
film’s making deals with devices that Webber, 2002
result in demystification or attempted
demystification of the film process. But LITTLE DOG FOR ROGER
by ‘deals with’ I do not mean ‘repre-
sents’. In other words, such films do not “The film is made from some fragments
document various film procedures, which of 9.5mm home movie that my father
would place them in the same category as shot of my mother, myself, and a dog we
films which transparently document a
had. This vaguely nostalgic material has
narrative, a set of actions, etc.
Documentation, through usage of the film provided an opportunity for me to play
medium as transparent, invisible, is with the medium as celluloid and various
exactly the same when the object being kinds of printing and processing devices.
documented is some ‘real event’, some The qualities of film, the sprockets, the
‘film procedure’, some ‘story’, etc. An individual frames, the deterioration of
avant-garde film defined by its develop- records like memories, all play an impor-
ment towards increased materialism and tant part in the meaning of this film.”
materialist function does not represent, or Malcolm Le Grice, Progressive Art
document, anything. The film produces
Productions distribution catalogue, 1969
 4 SHOOT SHOOT SHOOT
LOCATION: DURATION operator can get, with the help of a in a sense, if you have the eyes to see, to slow down the speed changes and Guy Sherwin, At The Academy, 1974, Guy Sherwin, Arts Council Film- British Film and Video Artists, 1996
Bolex-16 pro. With an overwhelming, everything is revealed, and technique is show the build up of individual frames. b/w, sound, 5m makers on Tour catalogue, 1980
complex, deep, beautiful soundtrack by no longer a means of alienation between The intermittent light sections of the film David Crosswaite, The Man With The “Sounds are affective. Images are instruc-
Film is a unique tool for the investigation Anthony.” observer and actor, or between the actor were made by filming directly into the Movie Camera, 1973, b/w, silent, 8m “At the Academy was made during a peri- tive. In reversing, turning over, the nota-
of time and space. The subjective time of Peter Gidal, London Film-Makers’ and his activity. From this point of view, projector gate, sometimes ‘freezing’ indi- Mike Dunford, Silver Surfer, 1972, b/w, od of raiding laboratory skips for junk tion, or perhaps the connotation of
the photographed image may be meas- Co-operative distribution catalogue, 1971 Malcolm Le Grice exhibits an unusual vidual frames and repeating sections of sound, 15m film. It uses a very simple and highly images and words, it becomes alarmingly
ured against the objective time of projec- honesty and integrity of intention. If Le the darker film. By using freeze frames, Jenny Okun, Still Life, 1976, colour, unprofessional homemade printer. The apparent that words (and not only in their
tion through the use of time-lapse, editing “Gidal’s ultimate goal is the viewer’s Grice’s heart is in technique, then his bleached images, under-exposure and silent, 6m found-footage was hand printed by wind- relationship with sentences) are to be
and duration. head: he’s interested in the way that the concurrent concern with the context with- inclusion of the frame line, the film Lis Rhodes, Dresden Dynamo, 1971, ing it on a sprocketed wheel through a believed, or not, and are therefore emo-
viewer comes to terms with what he sees, in which an observer assimilates and asserts both its physical and illusionistic colour, sound, 5m light beam. Because the light spills over tional. This is why lots can be said and
First tracing sunlight moving around a the analytic process of working out the directly experiences his structured realities.” Chris Garratt, Versailles I & II, 1976, the sound track area, the optical sound nothing happens, or nothing is said and a
room, then a static study of illumination true nature of the experience. Like other time/space events, is a way of wearing his William Raban, programme notes, b/w, sound, 11m undergoes identical transformations to lot happens. One person’s word against
around a night-time window. The formal ‘structuralists’, his distrust of content in heart on his sleeve.” 1972 Roger Hewins, Windowframe, 1975, the image. I programmed the printing so another’s. The answer and the question
Leading Light might surprise those famil- films verges on an all-but-paranoid fear John Du Cane, Time Out, 1977 colour, sound, 6m that the image gradually builds up in lay- occupy the same space. They are already
iar with the more humorous works of of human emotion… and since his films PHASED TIME2 ers superimposed, slightly out of phase, familiar if not known to each other.
John Smith. define their own rhythms (rather than FFOREST BAY II (Total running time approximately 78m) moving from one up to twelve layers. Emotionally they live within the same
Peter Gidal uncharacteristically used the matching life-rhythms, as in “Constructed on a pre-determined pro- political order, that is, of manipulation
mechanics of an automated camera to Eisensteinian montage) they presuppose “Each of my films is a separate attempt to gressively self-defining ‘phased’ score and persuasion. Images do not ‘say’.
construct the loop-like rhythm of Focus, the viewer’s willing surrender to the task re-define the interface between ‘mind’ and lens-matting procedure, Phased They are instructive. They are said to
which zooms through the “static reality” of watching them. At their best, as in and ‘nature’. Although specified or at Time2 consists of six sections, each out of ‘speak for themselves’. And I think they
of a mysterious apartment. With an elec- Bedroom or Focus (the latter a series of least implied in any one piece of work, a 100 ft. roll. All work was done in cam- do. Seeing sense is a rare occurrence, in
tronic score by Anthony Moore. backward-and-forward zooms through an this delineation is constantly changed and era except for linking with black spacer itself. There is little space for reflexive
Sheet develops from a conceptual basis open indoor space, the elements within adapted both as a definition, at a material between sections. Apart from the first, meaning in reflection. The one is the
and could be viewed as documentation of the shot at once seemingly arbitrary and level, and as a working model, at a con- each section is subdivided according to other, if not in geometry, certainly in
an event. The eponymous object is seen precisely defined), they are sufficiently ceptual level, to each unique situation or logical cyclic procedures. Each division time. The values of a social system are
in different locations, making this one of strong conceptually to capture the viewer location. Without this essentially cyber- (take) is a fixed position shot. At every continuously displayed and reproduced.
the few experimental films that offer us into participating in the experience, con- netic view of the relationship between consecutive take the camera is ‘pre- Repetitive distribution re-enforces
incidental glimpses of London during this sciously or not. One of the few genuine ‘mind’ and ‘nature’, a view in which the panned’ half a frame’s width to the right. acceptance, protectionism masquerades
period. ‘originals’ at work in Britain.” relation between the two operates as a Effectively, the camera is revolving in a as ‘free’ choice. But the explicit nature of
Le Grice’s film Whitchurch Down Tony Rayns, “Directory of UK homeostatic loop, ‘nature’ becomes noth- ‘static pan’ around a room throughout the images always remains implicit. You can
(Duration) takes three views of a land- Independent Film-Makers”, Cinema ing more than potential raw material at film. Also, each consecutive take is par- look at them. They are made to look at
scape and combines them with pure Rising No. 1, April 1972 the disposal of ‘mind’ acting upon it. This tially superimposed over its predecessor you. Even chance cannot avoid recogni-
colours and intermittent sound in pro- raw material is most visibly manifest in (by rewinding after each take) and conse- tion. Abstract or configured instruction is
gressive loop sequences and freeze- “Film cannot adequately represent con- that subdivision of ‘nature’ termed ‘land- quently phases the half-frame moves. The within the image. Even nothing much is
frames, positing duration as a concrete sciousness any more than it adequately scape’. The wilder and more remote this first section is a single continuous take, something. Meanwhile the needle goes
dimension. represents meaning; all film is invisibly landscape is, the further it is removed with the whole frame exposed. The sec- round and round the record irrespective
Shot to a pre-planned structure, Welsby’s encumbered by mystificatory systems from, and the less it exhibits those signs ond commences the phased divisions; in of the recording. Tape wraps round the
dynamic Fforest Bay II uses speed as the and interventions which are distortions, which mark the activities of ‘mind’. each, the whole frame is exposed. In the Jenny Okun, Still Life head and the disc spins. “Read my lips’,
instrument with which he demonstrates repressions, selections, etc. That a film is Technology is both a subdivision of third, alternative takes are matted half a he said. Hopefully, we didn’t bother.
the disparity between the cinematic view not a window to life, to a set of meanings, ‘nature’ and an extension of ‘mind’. frame’s width, progressively left and SLIDES This has the effect of stretching or decel- Seeing is never believing, or lip sync a
and the film surface. to a pure state of image/meaning, ought Viewed within these terms of reference, right of the frame. In the fourth, takes are erating individual frames from 1/24 sec confirmation of authenticity. But the
Via time-lapse, manual exposure and to be self-evident. Thus, the documenting the camera, as a product of technology, progressively matted by quarter frame “Slides was made while I was still a stu- to 1/2 sec, causing them to fuse with combination of instruction and affectivity
refilming, Broadwalk by William Raban of an act of film-making is as illusionist a can be seen as a potential interface widths and cycle twice; once through dent at St.Martins. Like the sewing adjacent frames. A separate concern in is very effective. Anything can be sold in
ranges from serenity to rigour. The per- practice as the documenting of a narrative between ‘mind’ and ‘nature’.” whole frame exposure; quarter matte machine piece, it was one that just hap- the film is the game it plays with the audi- between, anything that necessitates the
ceptible traces of human movement action (fiction). And consciousness is as Chris Welsby, Arts Council Film- (right); half; three quarters; half; quarter, pened. By that time I was immersed in ence’s expectations.” political construction of emotion. In a
appear as ghosts in the tranquil walkway. encumbered by the illusionist devices of makers on Tour catalogue, 1980 and back to whole. Then, quarter matte film and I always seemed to have bits of Guy Sherwin, A Perspective on series of films and live works I have
David Hall, a pioneer of video art, dis- cinema, if one is attempting to document (left); half; three quarters, etc. In the fifth, film around in my room, on the table, English Avant-Garde Film catalogue, investigated the material connections
plays a command of the cinematic medi- ‘it’, as anything else. Filmic reflexiveness “The idea that I was thinking of with the same procedure is taken using multi- everywhere, always little fragments. I had 1978 between the film image and the optical
um in the layers of superimposition that is the presentation of consciousness to the Fforest Bay was sort of the way that if ples of a one-eighth matte, but this time slides of my paintings and I cut up the sound track. In Dresden Dynamo, the one
make up Phased Time2, building up aural self, consciousness of the way one deals you changed the ‘sampling rates’, you proceeding through only one complete slides and made them into a strip. THE MAN WITH THE was the other. That is – what is heard is
and visual ‘chords’ while mapping out a with the material operations; film relex- were able to capture different types of cycle. The sixth, and last, proceeds Imagine a 16mm strip of celluloid with MOVIE CAMERA seen and what is seen is heard. One sym-
room on the flat screen. iveness is forced through cinema’s mate- events. One sampling rate would do cer- through one-sixteenth mattes from whole sprocket holes: Instead of that what I had bolic order creates the other. The film is
rialist operations of filmic practice.” tain things with the waves, and other frame to black (left). The second section was a strip – just slightly narrower – “Crosswaite’s Man with the Movie the score is the sound.”
John Smith, Leading Light, 1975, colour, Peter Gidal, “Theory and Definition sampling rates would start to register the (the first to comprise a multiple of takes) without the sprocket holes and the slides Camera is a particularly elegant film. By Lis Rhodes, “Flashback from a
sound, 11m of Structural/Materialist Film”, Structural activity of people in the scene. With has its number of divisions determined by were just cut into bits, just little frag- mounting a circular mirror a little before Partisan Filmmaker”, Filmwaves No. 6,
Peter Gidal, Focus, 1971, b/w, sound, 7m Film Anthology, 1976 another sampling rate, you’d be able to the number of half-frame moves neces- ments and stuck in with other film as the camera, so that it only occupies the 1998
Ian Breakwell & Mike Leggett, Sheet, see the clouds moving. The idea was to sary to complete a 180 degree linear well, and also sewing (this was before central area of the screen, and another
1970, b/w, sound, 21m SHEET start with a really rapid sampling rate and ‘pan’ (eight using a 10mm lens). Reel Time). There are bits sewn with mirror to the side, the camera and the VERSAILLES I & II
Malcolm Le Grice, Whitchurch Down then slow it down, and then reverse the Subsequent sections progressively thread and some bits with holes punched cameraman may be seen as the central
“Sheet is concerned with redefining “For this film I made a contact printing
(Duration), 1972, colour, sound, 8m process. So the fastest sampling rate was increase their numbers (according to in. It was a very natural way of me to image, with the other features of the room
Chris Welsby, Fforest Bay II, 1973, boundaries, affirming that old Gestalten one frame per position. I divided the rota- matte cycles) until the last which com- work, coming from painting, just work- visible around the circumference. The box, with a printing area 16mm x 185mm
colour, silent, 5m thing that elements in a field are always tion circle of sixty degrees into eight seg- pletes a 360 degree pan, with all takes ing with something I could hold in my film is complex in spite of the simplicity which enabled the printing of 24 frames
of picture plus optical sound area at one
William Raban, Broadwalk, 1972, colour, subordinated to the whole, the composi- ments: rotated the camera, took a frame, simultaneously superimposed in the cen- hand was somehow less threatening than of the set-up, which is only slowly
time. The first part is a composition using
sound, 12m tion of it – an aggregate of episodes – is rotated it again, took a frame, etc. Second ter of the section in sixteen takes (con- working with equipment. I think I was grasped. Particularly succinct is the way
David Hall, Phased Time2, 1974, colour, such that what finally emerged was a time round, I took two frames, and so on current with the one-sixteenth progres- much more confident working with in which the effect of manipulating the 7 x one-second shots of the statues of
Versailles. Palace of 1000 Beauties, with
sound, 15m somewhat soft mesmeric movie, the rep- up to about thirty frames, I think. At the sive mattes). The comparative ‘panning’ something that I could grab hold of, so I camera, like changing focus, is seen in
accompanying soundtrack, woven
etitions and symmetries setting up moods fastest sampling rate, you can’t really see pace is apparently accelerated or deceler- made this strip and then the film was real- the image simultaneously with a view of
(Total running time approximately 82m) in which one became immersed.” much because it’s going too fast; you’re ated according to the relative matting pro- ly created in the contact printer at the Co- how it is brought about. There is no other according to a pre-determined sequence.
Roger Hammond, London Film- more aware of the circular motion of the cedure and number of frame divisions, op. Normally you would have your raw ‘content’ than the functioning of the cam- Because sound and picture were printed
This programme adapts its title from Makers’ Co-operative catalogue supple- camera itself. Then as it starts to slow working from left to right and back from negative and your emulsion and its liter- era itself, seen to be sufficient and even simultaneously, the minute inconsisten-
cies in exposure times resulted in rhyth-
Malcolm Le Grice’s “Location? ment, 1972 down, you can see individual waves right to left and back, since the camera is ally in contact, the light shines through it poetic.”
mic fluctuations of picture density and
Duration?” exhibition of films and paint- break on the shore. As it slows down at all times moved to the right. The sound and you make a copy, but I had this very Malcolm Le Grice, Abstract Film and
levels of sound. Two of these shots com-
ings at the Drury Lane Arts Lab in 1968. “Shrouding or hiding belong both to some more you can see people and, even- phases and eventually superimposes syn- thin strip, which I held in the contact Beyond, 1977
prise the second part of the film which is
tually, clouds and changes of light. Then, chronously with the picture, and was pro- printer and I just manoeuvered it. I could
SILVER SURFER framed by abstract imagery printed
the whole process returns. Also, the duced on a synthesizer and electric see what I was doing because there’s a lit-
across the entire width of the film sur-
image flattens when it’s going very fast, organ.” tle peephole you can look into so that you
so you may become aware of the film sur- David Hall, First Festival of can see each image. It amazes me now “A surfer, filmed and shown on tv, face: the visible image is also the sound
face itself rather than the surface through Independent British Cinema catalogue, that I could have ever done anything like refilmed on 8mm, and refilmed again on image.”
16mm. Simple loop structure preceded Chris Garratt, London Film-Makers’
the screen.” 1975 that, I couldn’t possibly go within a hun-
Chris Welsby, interview with Mark dred yards of doing it now. But I did it by four minutes of a still frame of the Co-operative distribution catalogue, 1977
Webber, 2001 then and Slides was what came out of it. surfer. An image on the borders of appre-
* * * Annabel Nicolson, interview with hension, becoming more and more “I was motivated originally by the
BROADWALK Mark Webber, 2002 abstract. The surfer surfs, never surfs prospect of being able to compose sound
INTERVENTION & anywhere, an image suspended in the and visual images in units of fractions of
“This film reiterates some of the concerns PROCESSING “Slides develops a simple and elegant light of the projector lamp. A very quiet seconds and by the tremendous ratio of
of Raban’s earlier work: the manipulation tension between stasis and apparent and undramatic film, not particularly magnification between the making and
of time and the role of light/colour in motion, between surface and depth, and didactic. Sound: the first four minutes projection of sound and picture images.
landscape representation. The opening The workshop was an integral part of the between abstract colours / shapes and consists of a fog-horn, used as the basic The content is not really the figurative
and closing sequences of the film, shot at LFMC and provided almost unlimited representational imagery. Ironically, the tone for a chord played on the organ, the subject matter as in some superimposed
regular camera speed (24 frames per sec- access to hands-on printing and process- material pulled through the printer this rest of the film uses the sound of breakers concept, but the here and now of the raw
ond) establish a tension with the predom- ing. Within this supportive environment, time is not found-footage posing as orig- with a two second pulse and occasional material, in making and in projection, and
inant time-lapse/time-exposure sequence artists were free to experiment with tech- inal material which is utilized in the way bursts of musical-like sounds.” in the relationship between these two
(each frame exposed for a full twenty nique and engage directly with the film- found-footage had been used by others. London Film-Makers Co-operative events in which nothing is hidden,
seconds). The original hundred feet or so strip in an artisan manner. The film thus engages the entire concept distribution catalogue supplement, 1972 propped up, decorated, representative or
which were exposed during a period of of – in David Curtis’ phrase – ‘the representable. (The choice of the materi-
24 hours in Regent’s Park were then By treating film as a medium in the same English rubbish tip aesthetic’ which “Scientific or objective reality is based on al used was largely a matter of chance,
refilmed (off a projection screen) result- way that a sculptor might use different embraces, in part, the theory that any- repetition or frequency of observed data. but it is significant that (1) the original
Ian Breakwell & Mike Leggett, Sheet ing in a film over 400 feet long. This materials, the Co-op filmmakers brought thing that can travel through a printer It has been postulated that any unusual footage deals with ‘art’ and ‘culture’ in a
technique of rephotography further a new understanding of the physical sub- and/or projector is film material for a film event which occurs only once cannot be very clichéd way, (2) we instantly relate
death as the mysterious unseen killer, and abstracts the process of landscape repre- stance and the way it could be crafted. and for cinematic projection. The value- observed. Organisation of space is deter- to this whole genre of documentary rather
LEADING LIGHT
to the corpse. Sheet has all these feelings. sentation and offers greater possibilities Annabel Nicolson pulled prepared sec- less becomes valued. Nicolson asserts the mined by a continuous reference to the than to the particular subject, (3) it con-
The uncertainty and surprise: where will for variation and control over certain aes- tions of film (which might be sewn, col- preciousness not only of her original relationships between the observer and tains virtually no subject or camera
“Leading Light evolves a sense of screen
it appear next? The sheet appears in odd thetic effects. Raban’s established motif laged, perforated) through the printer to material but also that material in its trans- the observed data. ‘Objectivity’ is a func- movement at all, and (4) there is an opti-
depth and surface through the simple
of the light/colour variations of landscape make Slides. formations, and by extension the poten- tion of frequency, continued frequency cal soundtrack, identifiable during edit-
agency of light. The film is shot in a room places, making familiar objects look
imagery is here radicalized into Fred Drummond’s Shower Proof, an tial preciousness of all perception. In this implies permanence and therefore objec- ing only in the abstract, i.e. visually).”
over the period of a day and records the strange and uncanny. The party goes on Chris Garratt, “Directory of
white/black sequences, which operate in early Co-op process film, exploits the respect the film moves away from the rig- tivity. Frequency is determined by the
changes in light through the single win- with everybody pretending it isn’t there,
similar ways despite their polarity. degeneration of the image as a result of orous ascetic strategy and is more indul- organism. The perceptual threshold of a Independent British Cinema”,
dow. The image is controlled through embarrassed, ashamed of it, it is eventu-
White-outs constantly flatten the deep successive reprinting, intuitively cutting gent of the pleasure of vision…” human being is approximately 1/30th of a Independent Cinema No. 1, 1978
manipulation of aperture, of shutter
ally kicked into a corner. This sums up space of the original image. Black ‘bars’ footage of two people in a bathroom. Deke Dusinberre, Perspectives on second. Perception is a product of fre-
release, of lens, but the effect is more WINDOWFRAME
our present approach to death. As the film – parts of irregularly exposed (repho- Guy Sherwin uses layers of positive and British Avant-Garde Film catalogue, quency which is a product of perception.”
casual than determined and the spectator
proposes: the more we pretend it isn’t tographed) frames – are seen rolling negative leader to build a powerful bas- 1977 Mike Dunford, “Conjectures and “Windowframe is an investigation of the
is aware primarily of the determining
there, the more it pursues us. Then, in the across the screen emphasizing its surface relief in At The Academy, while Jenny Assertions”, Filmaktion programme way in which we may perceive a specific
strategy of following sunlight. Smith has
final sequence in the valley there seems nature. And the black ‘night’ sequence Okun explores the properties of colour SHOWER PROOF notes, 1973 image – that of two people, seen through
commented that, “…the film is not
intended as an academic exercise – I to be a feeling of resolution. Perhaps that serves to assert a strong identity between negative in Still Life. a window, involved in some activity. This
wanted to make a film of light cast by the film and landscape, in so far as blackness Considered and brilliantly executed, The “SONF SOUND TRACK SYNC? STILL LIFE is the image seen at the opening of the
the earth will eventually claim us, but
sun largely because I found it beautiful. also gives us birth, growth, and protec- is first felt as absence of landscape, and Man with the Movie Camera dazzles with SPASH BTHA BATH GURGLE WATER film. Subsequent sections of the film
only then as absence of light – inverting technique as focus, aperture and compo- – how real – pure film – or a report – sit- “Still Life moves towards later stages of present to the viewer differing juxtaposi-
At the same time, I did not want to make tion. So, as we realize that the sheet and
causal order. The fundamental aspect of sition are adjusted to exploit a mirror uation examined by camera – but false – transformation than the earlier films and tions of the four segments of this image
an illusionistic narrative film about the
the valley go together, so the sheet can go this film is the interpretation of actual positioned in front of the lens. contrived realism is not a true record of substitutes positive for negative camera which are created by the cross-bars of the
sun moving around a room, but instead to
off to a more bearable distance.” time and actual landscape into filmic time For Silver Surfer, Mike Dunford refilms spontaneous actuality – this could never stock in the conventional negative-posi- window. Tensions are created between
employ these events within an essentially
Extract from a letter to the filmmakers tive process of filming and printing: the what we expect to see, and what we do
filmic construction. Because the images
from a member of the audience, circa filmmaker then attempts to reinstate see. We see the original image as a single
are so seductive, there is a conflict in the
1970 some sort of representation of reality by whole. Do we perceive the manipulated
film between the events which occurred
painting the fruit in front of the camera its sections in the same way, or are we drawn
and the way in which they were recorded.
negative colours; but the burnt-out shad- to investigate each pane separately? Can
This is quite intentional – for this reason WHITCHURCH DOWN ows and black highlights consistently we make ourselves see the manipulated
I chose a very romantic piece of music for (DURATION) prevent any illusionistic interpretation of sections in the same way we see the orig-
the soundtrack, which is mechanistically
the space within the frame while also inal sequence? In the section in which the
manipulated. The sound (which only “This film is the beginning of an exami- asserting the processes involved.” image is split simply horizontally or ver-
occurs when an image of a record player nation of the perceptual and conceptual Jeremy Spencer, “Films of Jenny tically are we able to re-establish/re-con-
appears on the screen) alters in level in structures which can be dealt with using Okun”, Readings No. 2, 1977 struct the original image in our minds so
relation to two variables – the apparent pure colour sequences in loop forms with
distance from the camera to the apparent pictorial material. In this case, the picto- that the image we see differs from that on
“My films, photographic constructions, the screen? Perhaps this film answers
source of the sound, and the exposure of rial material is confined to three land- Fred Drummond, Shower Proof and paintings all stem from similar con- some of these questions; perhaps it mere-
the individual shots (bright=loud, scape locations and the structure is not
be? enough to contrive (the camera cerns. They are attempts to integrate the ly raises them.”
dark=quiet). The manipulations accord- mathematically rigorous.”
makes every situation an arrangement), structural aspects of an event/landscape Roger Hewins, Derby Independent
ing to distance are merely an extension of Malcolm Le Grice, London Film-
then edit out as much obvious con- with the structural aspects of the medium Film Awards catalogue, 1976
an accepted illusionistic code (source of Makers’ Co-operative distribution cata-
trivance. It is only a FILM.” involved. This integration of structures is
sound seems further away, therefore the logue, 1974
Fred Drummond, original production aimed at creating a balance with no one “For the best part of ten years
sound is quieter, etc.), whereas the
notes for Shower Proof, 1968 element overstated, no one part domi- Windowframe was exhibited as a silent
manipulations according to brightness are “The first general point about Le Grice’s nant. My own participation is emphasised film. I had, however, always ‘seen’ it as a
materialist – a new code, but just as valid work is that the eventual structure of his film with sound. Indeed a magnetic stripe
“Fred Drummond has made a series of in this process – just as scientists now to facilitate this had been added to the
as the other in the film’s terms.”” films is not normally the result of an
short single and double-screen films that acknowledge that their own existence original print of the film at the lab.
Deke Dusinberre, Perspectives on adherence to a rigorously formulated ini-
explore visual rhythms and the potentials cannot be ignored in the calculation of However, I was unable to decide exactly
British Avant-Garde Film catalogue, tial concept. The films are better under-
William Raban, Broadwalk of the printing process. They are non-nar- experimental data. The subjects that I what the soundtrack should be. A simple
1977 stood as events that emerge from his plas-
rative, careful orchestrations of repeated choose are not those that most easily sug- music track seemed inappropriate, too
tic concerns with film process. In other gest a filmic structure but are subjects much like background music for its own
“Leading Light uses the camera-eye to words, the meaning of Le Grice’s films and filmic landscape. But the process of individual frames of footage originally loop footage. Shower Proof is printed on
reinterpreting a rigorous time-lapse sys- sourced from television as waves of elec- increasingly high-contrast negative. The which cannot be verbalized. For me, film sake with little relationship to the struc-
reveal the irregular beauty of a familiar stems principally from a direct exploita-
tem of recording into an intuited one of tronic sound wash over the shimmering image grows from the abstract, yet plain- is a language with which we can study ture of the visuals, whilst attempts at a
space. When we inhabit a room we are tion of film’s physical properties; film more constructed rhythmic track intro-
re-recording might suggest that Raban figure. ly anthropomorphic, steadily through to our own visual thought processes. Each duced extraneous ‘off-screen’ informa-
only unevenly aware of the space held in can be physically manipulated, for
has some reservations about the hegemo- Contrasting colours and optical patterns the personal, yet non-specific – we see new film can create its own language for tion taking the viewer outside of the
it and the possible forms of vision which instance, not merely in the act of expos-
ny of any system and feels the need to intensify the illusion that Lis Rhodes’ neither the man’s nor the woman’s face in this visual discussion and can be explored experience of simply watching the film
reside there. The camera-eye documents ing it to light in a camera, but also
insert a measure of spontaneous experi- Dresden Dynamo appears to hover in detail – and back. The film explores the and contained within its own terms.” itself. I was looking for a soundtrack that
and returns our apprehension. Vertov through direct control of its developing
ence.” deep space between the viewer and the relation between form and movement. Jenny Okun, Arts Council Film- provided an equivalence for the visuals
imagined a ‘single room’ made up of a and printing. It is easy to be misled into themselves. The soundtrack on the exist-
Deke Dusinberre, British Avant- screen. The visual rhythm is so strong that Makers on Tour catalogue, 1980
montage of many different rooms. Smith thinking that such concerns with the tech- ing print is the “Missa Pange Lingua’” by
reverses this aspect of ‘creative geogra- nical properties of film necessarily result Garde Landscape Films programme Garratt’s Versailles I & II breaks down a despite the film being silent the viewer Josquin des Pres. It was combined with
phy’ by showing how many rooms the notes, 1975 conventional travelogue into repetitive, has a strong aural impression.” DRESDEN DYNAMO
in a certain dehumanization of the film the visuals in 1982. This music was in
camera can create from just one.” activity. The confusion results from an rhythmic sections. Verina Glaessner, “Directory of UK fact recorded for a later film. During the
“Initially, the scale of screen speed was Roger Hewins employs optical masking Independent Film-Makers”, Cinema “The enduring importance of Lis Rhodes editing of this film I became interested in
A.L. Rees, Unpacking 7 Films pro- inability to see that the filmmaker is also
determined by the intermittency of to create impossible ‘real time’ events Rising No.1, April 1972 as artist and film-maker is attributable to the ‘out-takes’, where singers had made
gramme notes, 1980 an actor; i.e. a man who acts with film.
frames. Within this broad framework, which, though prosaic, appear to take on her quiet and powerful radicalism. mistakes injecting sudden interruptions in
By making explicit the materials and Rhodes’ work juxtaposes an artistically the four-part medieval harmonies. Not
FOCUS processes of the film, the film maker which reduces the whole daylight period an almost sacred affectation in AT THE ACADEMY
to minutes, the film studies a more spe- Windowframe. and theoretically rigorous practice with only did the religious music resonate the
allows us to see his film not just as a fin- passionate commitment. She has devel- stained glass quality of the images, but
“Taking the relocating enumerative cific minor scale of speed changes occur- “In making films, I am not trying to say
ished object but as one event (and not
ring inside the twenty-second frame Annabel Nicolson, Slides, 1970, colour, something, but to find out about some- oped a mode of film-making inspired but also the four-part structure and its inter-
placement of ‘static’ reality in Bedroom always the culminating event) in a whole
interval. In order to make this more silent, 12m (18fps) thing. But what one tries to find out, and not enslaved by feminism, which has sus- ruptions provided the auditory equiva-
to its ultimate conclusion; a film whose series of events that make up a continuum lence for the overall structure of the film.
apparent, I refilmed the original from the Fred Drummond, Shower Proof, 1968, how one tries to find it out, reveals what tained and grown regardless of fashion-
‘repetitions’ are as close to mechanistic of film activity. And this is a remarkably
screen at a speed which was high enough b/w, silent, 10m (18fps) one is saying.” able trends in art and representation.”
processes (loops) as the human camera- courageous and personal thing to do: for, Roger Hewins, 2002
Gill Henderson, A Directory of
 SHOOT SHOOT SHOOT
DIVERSIFICATIONS tension rises, later to explode in accepted relationship between sound
spectacularly bending, twisting sin- and image, the suggestive power of
gle-frame bursts. language.
From personal montage through to The brief, rapid-fire collage White Chinese images and slogans are
exploration of the cinematic process, Lite by Jeff Keen is made up of baf- transformed by split-screen,
the work was sensuous and playful. fling layers of live action, stop- ingrained dirt and hand-held photog-
As a creative group, the Co-op cov- motion, obliteration and assemblage. raphy to create a visual pun in Ian
ered vital aesthetic ground and resis- Anne Rees-Mogg’s Muybridge Film, Kerr’s film, from “Persisting in our
ted categorisation. This programme in homage to the pioneer of motion struggle” to Persisting in our vision.
does not pursue a single theme or photography, constructs a playful
concept, rather it demonstrates the film by breaking down a sequence Annabel Nicolson, Shapes, 1970,
colour, silent, 7m (18fps)
Marilyn Halford, Footsteps, 1974,
b/w, sound, 6m
Malcolm Le Grice, Talla, 1968, b/w,
silent, 20m
Jeff Keen, White Lite, 1968, b/w,
silent, 2.5m
Anne Rees-Mogg, Muybridge Film,
1975, b/w, silent, 5m
Stephen Dwoskin, Moment, 1968,
colour, sound, 12m
Chris Welsby, Windmill II, 1973,
colour, sound, 10m
John Smith, The Girl Chewing Gum,
1976, b/w, sound, 12m
Ian Kerr, Persisting, 1975, colour,
sound, 10m
(Total running time approximately
85m)
SHAPES
“I tried to make a kind of environment in
the room where I lived in Kentish Town
Annabel Nicholson, Shapes and to make a film within it. There were
pieces of paper and screwed up, transpar-
broad range of work that was pro- into its constituent frames. ent gels hanging from the ceiling; it was
duced during this time. Moment is an unmediated look, erot- quite dense in some parts. I wandered
ic but not explicit, as saturated as its through it with a camera and then other
The exposition section of Annabel celluloid. It’s a key work of parts were filmed on the rooftop at St
Nicolson’s Shapes reveals its tactile Dwoskin’s early sensual portraits of Martins. I think I was just very much try-
evolution, as visible dirt is made evi- solitary girls, in which the returning ing to find my way in a whole new area of
dent by the step-printing technique. stare challenges our objective / sub- work. I remember it involved a lot of re-
Moving into real time, the multiple jective gaze. filming, which was the part I liked. The
layers of superimposition present Chris Welsby’s Windmill II is one of process was very fluid, similar to paint-
strange spatial dimensions as the a series in which propeller blades ing. I got quite interested in the specks of
filmmaker toys with light, moving rotate in front of the camera, acting dust and dirt on the film and the re-film-
among the paper structures in her as a second shutter, controlled by an ing gave me a chance to look at that more
room. unpredictable and natural force. In closely. Probably the thing that attracted
Footsteps engages the camera (view- this instance, the blades are backed me to film was the light … the kind of
er) in a playful game of “statues”. with a reflective material that offers floating quality you can get, images sus-
The film was often presented as a a glance back at the recording device pended in light. Looking at it now, the
live performance in which Marilyn intermittent with the zoetropic view kind of paintings I was doing before were
Halford crept up on her own project- of the park. floating shapes. It seems to me that the
ed likeness. In The Girl Chewing Gum, by John kind of things I was looking for I should
Le Grice’s Talla adopts an almost Smith, the narration appears to direct be able to do with film. When I make a
mythical pose. Images slowly everyday life before breaking down, film, I’m not sure what I’m ever trying to
encroach on the frame as the visual causing the viewer to question the achieve … it kind of gets clearer to me as
I’m doing it.”
Annabel Nicolson, interview with
Mark Webber, 2002
“Compassion; care; love; appreciation;
attention. Quietude; silence; slowness;
gentleness; subtlety; lyricism; beauty. It
is terms like these that Annabel
Nicolson’s films can be discussed in
(exploratory would be another), if they
are to be discussed at all; and perhaps
they are best left to themselves, and to the
receptive eye, mind, and soul of the view-
er. They are humble, unpretentious,
searching, and thoughtful films: they are
reverent, after a style, and should be seen
with a similar sort of reverence. The
ephemeral thing, by this compassionate
attention, is given the aspect of timeless-
ness which transcends mere nostalgia: the
thing is seen ‘under the aspect of eterni-
ty’.”
David Miller, Paragraphs On Some
Films by Annabel Nicolson Seen in
March 1973
FOOTSTEPS
“Footsteps is in the manner of a game
reinacted, the game in making was
between the camera and actor, the actor
and cameraman, and one hundred feet of
film. The film became expanded into pos-
itive and negative to change balances
within it; black for perspective, then
black to shadow the screen and make
paradoxes with the idea of acting, and the
act of seeing the screen. The music sets a
mood then turns a space, remembers the
positive then silences the flatness of the
negative. I am interested in the relation-
ship of theatrical devices in film working
at tangents with its abstract visual quali-
ties. The use of a game works the memo-
ry, anticipation is set, positive film stands
to resemble a three-dimensional sense of
time in past/future. Then negative holds
out film itself as the image is one stage
further abstracted and a disquiet is set up
in the point that the sound track ends,
whilst the picture track continues.”
Marilyn Halford, Perspectives on
British Avant-Garde Film exhibition cata- John Smith, The Girl Chewing Gum
logue, 1977
“We’d just got one of these Russian film
developing tanks, that you can load 100
feet of black and white film into and
develop it yourself, which is very appeal-
ing because it means you haven’t got all
the palaver of going to labs. Footsteps is
based, obviously, on a game. Now whose
early work would I have seen that
prompted that? I think the image itself
came from René Clair. That slightly
rough black and white image I like very
much – the idea of it not mattering if it’s
got speckly and dusty. It had a certain
degree of antiquity built into it which, to
me, was quite liberating because it’s hard
to keep it all dust free and so forth.
Anyway, that’s how I wanted it, I wanted
it to look old even before it started, like
old footage. Consequently it’s got the
Scott Joplin soundtrack, “The
Entertainer”; just because it’s amusing
and also to add that aged thing to it. The
first time it goes through it’s in negative
so you wouldn’t necessarily see what was
going on, so you would have a lot of
questions and curiosity as to what was
happening. And then when all is revealed
the right way round, it is just so simple,
it’s just such a simple game. I suppose the
performance part of it just grew out of
that, to extend it really, it was another
way of presenting it – to take part and to
play the game with the film image itself.”
Marilyn Halford, interview with Mark
Webber, 2001
TALLA
“Talla is the most narrative/subjective
film I have yet made. Because all the
material was shot by me in a week or so
it has location continuity, which becomes
very important in the film. The pace of
the cutting is still fast and images still
work from perception to conception or
perhaps in this film – to ‘feeling’.
However, there is no consistent building
up of pace and the fast-cut pieces are held
within pauses so that there are often
‘clusters’ of images diving out of a main-
ly calm field.”
Malcolm Le Grice, Interfunktionen 4,
March 1970
5
“I think Talla is a hard film for most peo- placed in a park. The basic system way, river, or some other obstacle. 2. cation or implication.”
ple. It’s a very psychological and myste- involves a windmill directly in front of Something that resembles this in shape or Stephen Dwoskin, Film Is: The
International Free Cinema, 1975
rious film. It starts out, in one primitive the camera, so that as the blades pass by function: his letters provided a bridge
way, from the interplay of the black and the lens they act as a second shutter, as a across the centuries. subtitle n. 1. an “A film that is almost a life style. Long
the white. I was interested in this white paradigm for the first shutter. The blades additional subordinate title given to a lit- enough and big enough in scope to be
screen on which things appear black. It’s are covered in melanex, a mirrored fabric. erary or other work. 2. (often pl.) Also able to safely include boredom, blank-
highly orchestrated, in terms of the black The varying speeds of the blades present called: caption. Films. a. a written trans- screens, bad footage. The kind of film
that is analogous in a symbolic way to
and white qualities of the image. There’s the spectator with varying perceptual data lation superimposed on a film that has something like the ‘stream of life’ – no
something that’s coming out in this work, which require different approaches to the foreign dialogue. b. explanatory text on a one would ever criticize looking out of
in the mythological kind of subject – image. When moving slowly, they act as silent film. vb. 3. (tr.; usually passive) to the window as being boring sometimes.
Chronos Fragmented and the Cyclops a repoussoir, heightening the sense of provide a subtitle for. subtitular adj. It’s not a film – more like an event com-
deep space. At a moderate speed, they act
and all of that stuff – that Talla is playing soundtrack n. 1. the recorded sound posed of the collective ideas and attempts
on. The shot material is actually on a very as an extra shutter which fragments ‘nor- accompaniment to a film. Compare com- in film of several years. Like a personal
obscure bit of Dartmoor, and Dartmoor mal’ motion, emphasizing movement mentary (sense 2). 2. A narrow strip diary: humorous, wry, sad, ecstatic.
Prison and the warders there. So there’s within the deeper plane and critiquing the along the side of a spool of film, which Concerned with texture, with seeing and
not seeing, light and darkness, even life
that element of the threatening, mysteri- notion of ‘normality’ in cinematic carries the sound accompaniment …
and death. Monumental not in size alone,
ous bit of society which is something that motion. When moving quite fast, the Wave Upon Wave of Wheatfield.” but in its breadth of concept. Relaxed
you can’t get into, the dark side of the blades act as abstract images superim- Ian Kerr, 2002 enough to be able to let one idea run on
social. It’s also very mythical, in that theposed on the landscape image and flat- for twenty minutes before switching to
gods and ghosts of that landscape are tening the two planes into one. And when another. The exact opposite of most film-
floating around there in the mist. It was the blades are stopped (or almost so) a * * * making which attempts to keep the audi-
completely edited directly on 16mm completely new space is created – not ence ‘interested’ by rapidly changing
using a magnifying glass, I didn’t edit it only does the new (reflected) deep space THE EPIC FLIGHT from one form or idea to another, to
exclude boredom and participation. A
at all through a viewer. I thought of it contain objects in foreground and back-
‘super-Le Grice’ in that it has inherent
symphonically, in terms of the lengths ground to affirm its depth, but these sensitivity and humanity, as well as
and orchestration. There’s an element of objects are seen in anamorphosis (due to An extended personal odyssey which, superlative and highly inventive tech-
propheticness in there…” the irregular surface of the melanex) through an accumulation of visual infor- nique. It opens up film-making by includ-
Malcolm Le Grice, interview with which effectively re-flattens them; the mation, builds into a treatise on the expe- ing such self-conscious ethics as those
Mark Webber, 2001 variations in the mirror surface create dis- rience of seeing. Its loose, indefinable propounded by Warhol etc. as a natural
tortions which violate (or at least call structure explores new possibilities for part of the film ethic as a whole.”
WHITE LITE attention to) the normal function of the perception and narrative. Mike Dunford, Cinemantics No. 1,
lens of the camera.” January 1970
“Watch the ghost of Bela Lugosi decay Deke Dusinberre, “St. George in the Reinforcing the idea of the mythopoeic “Mare’s Tail is one of the finest achieve-
before your very eyes. A sequel to Plan 9 Forest: The English Avant-Garde”, discourse and the historically romantic ments in cinema. It is a masterpiece that
From Outer Space.” Afterimage No. 6, 1976 view of the artist-filmmaker, Mare’s Tail everyone in the country should get to see.
Jeff Keen/Deke Dusinberre, “Interim is a legend, consisting of layers of sounds To write about it is about as difficult as
Jeff Keen Filmography with Arbitrary “Formalism has grown up in parallel with and images that reveal each other over an conveying the essence of magic, the
Annotations”, Afterimage No. 6, 1976 the development of an advanced technol- extended period. It’s a personal vision, an meaning of existence, the quality of love
ogy. The medium of landscape film aggregation of experience, memories and or the shadows of a receding dream. For
the film is pure myth, a living organism in
“Keen is indebted to the Surrealist tradi- brings to organic life the language of for- moments overlaid with indecipherable
its own right, a creation whose infinite
tion for many of his central concerns: his malism. It is a language shared by both intonations and altered musics. The col- complexity makes criticism of it a shal-
passion for instability, his sense of le film-makers and painters. In painting, lected footage is extensively manipulat- low irrelevancy (or at best a crude
merveilleux, his fondness for analogies particularly American painting of the ed, through refilming, superimposition or mythology). The achievement is that the
and puns, his preference for ‘lowbrow’ art 1950s, formalistic thinking became man- direct chemical treatment. The observer film never looks like a mere catalogue of
over aestheticism of any kind, his dedica- ifest in the dictum ‘truth to materials’, may slip in and out of the film as it runs special effects – the vision is integrated,
tion to collage and le hazard objectif. But placing the emphasis on paint and canvas its course; it does not demand constant relaxed, spontaneous and too fluid for
this ‘continental’ facet of his work – vir- as the subject of the work. In film, partic- attention, though persistence is rewarded there to be any sense of contrivance in
this staggering display of inventive
tually unique in this country – co-exists ularly the independent work done in by experience after the full projection has
curiosity. The immense diversity of tech-
with various typically English character- England, it manifests itself by emphasiz- been endured. nique runs hand-in-hand with a sustained
istics, which betray other roots. The tacky ing the filmic process as the subject of the
glamour/True Beauty of his Family Star work. The synthesis between these for-
productions is at least as close to the end malistic concerns of independent film
of Brighton pier as it is to Hollywood B- and the organic quality of landscape
movies… The heroic absurdity and adult imagery is inevitably the central issue of
infantilism that are the mainsprings of his contemporary landscape film. It is this
comedy draw on a long tradition of post- attempt to integrate the forms of technol-
Victorian humour: not the ‘innocent’ vul- ogy with the forms found in nature which
garity of music hall, but the anarchicness gives the art of landscape its relevance in
of The Goons and the self-lacerating the twentieth century.”
ironies of the 30s clowns, complete with Chris Welsby, Perspectives on British
their undertow of melancholia.” Avant-Garde Film exhibition catalogue,
Tony Rayns, “Born to Kill: Mr. Soft 1977
Eliminator”, Afterimage No. 6, 1976
THE GIRL CHEWING GUM
MUYBRIDGE FILM
“I am writing this with a black ‘Tempo’
“I started making films in 1966, and fiber-tip pen. A few months ago, I bought
teaching filmmaking in 1967. Before that fifteen of these pens for sixty pence.
I had been painting and drawing and Unfortunately, because they are so com-
exhibiting at the Beaux Arts Gallery and mon, other people pick them up thinking
other places. My first film was a painter- they are theirs, so I don’t have many left
ly study of interference colours and struc- now. I bought the pens from a market in
tures of soap bubbles (Nothing is Kingsland Road in Hackney, about a hun-
Something). At the same time I made a dred yards from where the film was shot.
16mm home movie of my nephews which The film draws attention to the cinematic David Larcher, Mare’s Tail
was called Relations. I realized two codes and illusions it incorporates by
things, one that film is not about move- denying their existence, treating repre- While studying at the Royal College of simplicity of treatment. You’re aware of a
ment, and that the figurative and narrative sentation as absolute reality.” Art, David Larcher made a first film KO mind that is open and loving toward
possibilities of the second film were what John Smith, “Directory of (1964-65, with soundtrack composed by everything: and this loving openness of
I wanted to explore. Eight years later I Independent British Cinema”, Philip Glass), which was subsequently response transfigures every image in the
film, as it eventually transfigures the
made the film I should have made then, a Independent Cinema No. 1, 1978 disassembled and small sections incorpo- viewer too…”
small film called Muybridge Film in rated in Mare’s Tail (a recurrent practise John Du Cane, Time Out, 1972
which I explored all the filmic possibili- “In relinquishing the more subtle use of that continues through his later works).
ties of someone turning a cartwheel.” voice-over in television documentary, the Encouraged by contact with true inde- “A film that is undoubtedly one of the
Anne Rees-Mogg, Arts Council Film- film draws attention to the control and pendent filmmakers like Peter Whitehead most important produced in this country
Makers on Tour catalogue, 1980 directional function of that practice: and Conrad Rooks, Larcher set out on to and that stands comparison with the best
document his own life in a quasi-autobio- from the United States. It’s as if it were
graphical manner. the first film in the world. When Mare’s
Tail first appeared it was compared to
Though financed by wealthy patron Alan Brakhage’s Art of Vision, as an examina-
Power, Mare’s Tail was, in its technical tion of ways of seeing. The comparison
fabrication, a self-sufficient project made can be taken further: as Brakhage is to the
before the Co-op had any significant New American Cinema, it seems to me,
workshop equipment. At times, Larcher so Larcher should be considered to the
was living in a truck, and stories of films New English Cinema… Mare’s Tail is not
processed in public lavatories in the only about vision but proposes an episte-
Scottish Highlands do not seem far from mology of film, particularly in its first
reel: revealing basic elements of film in
the truth. His relationship to the Co-op an almost didactic fashion: grain, frame,
has always been slightly distanced, strip, projector, light. We see a film in
though his lifestyle impressed and influ- perpetual process, being put together,
enced many of the younger, more mar- being formed out of these attitudes. The
ginal figures. first reel is a ‘lexicon’ to the whole film –
His next film, Monkey’s Birthday (1975, to film in general – holding together what
six hours long), was shot over several is essentially an open-ended structure to
years’ travels across the world with his which pieces could be continually added
and offering us a way to read that film. It
entourage, and this time made full use of is at once a kind of autobiography and a
the Co-op processor to achieve its psy- film about making that autobiography.”
chedelic effect. Simon Field, “The Light of the Eyes”,
Art and Artists, December 1972
David Larcher, Mare’s Tail, 1969, colour,
sound, 143m “Pierre Boulez came to a screening of
Mare’s Tail at Robert Street once. Simon
“From one flick of the mare’s tail came Hartog said, “Oh, I sent my father to see
Mare’s Tail”, his father was an impresario
an unending stream of images out of for people like Joan Sutherland and
which was crystalised the milky way. Pierre Boulez, and it turned out that
imposing, judging, creating an imaginary Primitive, picaresque cinema.” (David Boulez came and was sat behind us. I’d
MOMENT scene from a visual trace. This ‘Big Larcher) been living in trucks and I’d just come up
Brother’ is not only looking at you but and it happened to be the same day. I
“Moment presents a continuous, fixed ordering you about as the viewer’s identi- MARE’S TAIL went along and found this old tramp
gaze by the camera at a girl’s face. The fication shifts from the people in the called Eric – this famous character who
fixity, although paralleling the spectator’s street to the camera eye overlooking the “Now you see it, now you don’t. Waiting was around in those days, early ’70s –
room cinema from the mountain top to and took him along. We were sitting there
position, nevertheless marks itself off as scene. The resultant voyeurism takes on the car park, an alternative to television. and then I suddenly realised Boulez was
‘different’ from our view because it refus- an uncanny aspect as the blandness of the The good, the bad and the indifferent. behind. After half an hour he said, “C’est
es the complex system of movements, scene (shot in black and white on a grey Some consider it self-indulgent but me le perfection,” and walked out with
cuts, ‘invisible’ transitions, etc. which day in Hackney) contrasts with the near has a duty to itself. Bring what you Simon’s father!”
classic cinema developed to capture our ‘magical’ control identified with the expect to find. Not structural but starting David Larcher, interview with Mark
‘subjectivity’ and absorb it into the filmic voice. The most surprising effect is the in the beginning from the Webber, 2001
text. In this way, the distinction between ease with which representation and beginning…organic…prima
materia…impressionable massa con-
the looks of the camera at the profilmic description turn into phantasm through fusa…out of which some original naming
event and of the viewer at the image is the determining power of language.” and ordering processes spring…they are
emphasized. Moreover, the sadistic com- Michael Maziere, “John Smith’s not named, but rather nailed into the cel-
ponents inherent in the pleasurable exer- Films: Reading the Visible”, Undercut luloid. “Please don’t expect me to answer
cise of the ‘controlling’ gaze (a basic fact 10/11, 1984 the question I’m having a hard time not
without which no cinema could exist) are falling out of this chair” syndrome.”
returned to the viewer, as it is he/she who PERSISTING David Larcher, Arts Council Film-
must construct the ‘scenario’ by combin- Makers on Tour catalogue, 1980
ing a reading of the image (slight move- “Thee gap in between, perception and “Mare’s Tail is an epic flight into inner
ments of the woman, colour changes in awareness of perception of moment is space. It is a 2 and 3/4 hour visual accu-
her face, facial expressions, etc.) with an Persisting. To put it in context, it works mulation in colour, the film-maker’s per-
imagined (but suggested) series of hap- like this, like these. Acceleration of sens- sonal odyssey, which becomes the
penings off-screen. The result is a narra- es in TV culture makes for rash decisions. odyssey of each of us. It is a man’s life
tive: the progressive excitement of a Momentary vision. Speed kills. Speed transposed into a visual realm, a realm of
woman who masturbates.” lies. Very fast glimpses of one image spirits and demons, which unravel as
Paul Willemen, Perspectives on mean you learn more in a time period, in mystical totalities until reality fragments.
Every movement begins a journey. There
British Avant-Garde Film catalogue, a sense speed slows down our attention. are spots before your eyes, as when you
1977 Very fast glimpses of different images look at the sun that flames and burns. We
mean we absorb subliminally a little of look at distant moving forms and flash
“In one long take, a girl whose face we many things. Speed is speeding up our through them. We drift through suns; a
see in close-up throughout, smokes and attention. So time is material. Can be piece of earth phases over the moon. A
excites herself, her eyes resting at manipulated. Can exist an one or more face, your face, his face, a face that looks
moments on the camera as if in a suppli- speeds simultaneously. Subject. Where is and splits into shapes that form new
cation which is also an utterly resigned camera, is camera present. Are we aware shapes that we rediscover as tiny mono-
accusation of film-maker and spectator lithic monuments. A profile as a full face.
of camera, who is being looked at, what The moon again, the flesh, the child, the
alike. Not for their curiosity, which may is happening, are we learning. Is it good room and the waves become part of a
after all be far from devoid or reverence to expect to learn. Is there actually such a hieroglyphic language… Mare’s Tail is
for the human mystery, but for a willful thing as a valid subject. Does it matter. To an important film because it expresses
self-withholding which is the standard be aware is to exist on levels simultane- life. It follows Paul Klee’s idea that a
human relationship. Here are three soli- ously trusting none as finite.” visually expressive piece adds “more
tudes, and the film’s climax occurs after Genesis P. Orridge, “Three Absent spirit to the seen” and also “makes secret
the girl’s, in her uneasy satiety, a convul- Guesses”, Edinburgh Film Festival pro- visions visible”. Like other serious films
sion returning her, and us, to an accentu- gramme notes, 1978 and works of art, it keeps on seeking and
seeing, as the film-maker does, as the
ation of the nothing from which she fled.” artist does. It follows the transience of
Ray Durgnat, Sexual Alienation in the “persist vb. (intr.) 1. (often foll. by in) to life and nature, studying things closely,
Cinema, 1972 continue steadfastly or obstinately moving into vast space, coming in close
despite opposition or difficulty. 2. to con- again. The course it follows is profound-
WINDMILL II tinue to exist or occur without interup- ly real and profoundly personal: Introductory programme notes by Mark
Larcher’s trip becomes our trip to experi-
“A reflexiveness using the camera shutter tion: the rain persisted throughout the ence. It cannot be watched impatiently,
Webber, with thanks to Al Rees.
Excerpted paragraphs on each film were assem-
as a technical referent can be seen in night. bridge n. 1. A structure that spans with expectation; it is no good looking bled by Travis Miles and Mark Webber.
Welsby’s Windmill II. The camera is and provides a passage over a road, rail- for generalization, condensation, compli- Copyright remains with their original authors.
 6 SHOOT SHOOT SHOOT
LONDON FILM-MAKERS CO-OP
94 CHARING CROSS ROAD LONDON
WC2
PRESS CONFERENCE
date: thursday 20th october 1966
time: 11 a m
place: better books new compton street shop
(adjoining 94 charing X rd)
announcing:
the foundation of the london film-makers co-
operative new member of the international
association of film co-operatives
the movement:
avant-garde low budget non-commercial
films are today being made here in london in
greater numbers than most people realise sim-
ilar groups of young film-makers are active in
both the united states and countries throughout
europe seeking to free and therefore widen
this art-form from the ties of industry and high
finance which have bound it so far now with
the formation of the london film-makers co-op
an important link in the world-wide chain of
non-commercial ‘underground’ film-making is
established at the press conference plans will
be outlined for a major london festival of
‘underground’ films from around the world
london film-makers co-operative magazine
CINIM no 1 will appear in a fortnight
born on october 13th london film-makers co-
operative has already held one highly success-
ful all-night viewing of ‘underground’ films to
capacity audience
harvey matusow: chairman
paul francis bob cobbing: joint secretaries
LONDON FILMMAKERS
COOPERATIVE
13A PRINCE OF WALES CRESCENT
LONDON NW1 TEL. 267-4907
PRESS RELEASE
The London Filmmakers Cooperative
will inaugurate its cinema which was
built by Coop filmmakers on 10 of
September at 4:00p.m. with a press
showing of new films from the Film
Coop library at its new premises: 13a
Prince of Wales Crescent. Many of the
films to be shown will be having their
first public screening in England. A num-
ber of the films have been processed and
printed by the filmmakers on Coop
Workshop equipment.
The Filmmakers’ Coop is a non-profit
organization formed to help independent
filmmakers in production and distribu-
tion of their films. It is organized and run
cooperatively by the filmmakers them-
selves. The Coop has the largest non-
commercial library of English, American
and European experimental, ‘avant
garde’ or underground films in Europe
and England. The Coop Workshop is a
place where independent filmmakers can
experiment freely while avoiding exhor-
bitant production costs. The workshop
has facilities for processing, printing and
editing 16mm and 8mm film.
Many of the films screened at the ‘press
show’ will be shown at the Coop Cinema
during the course of the year. The films
will also be screened in London (and
other parts of England) at such places as
the New Cinema Club, and at art schools,
clubs and film s ocieties.
Underground or independently made
films rarely get much press coverage in
England, even by the ‘underground’
press, so that all too often really fine,
important, interesting, original or outra-
geous films get a tiny audience that hard-
ly pays for the cost of the screening. This
is partly due to the fact that people have
never heard of the film or filmmaker
before. We hope this showing will gener-
ate some coverage of these films. It
would be especially good if something
could be written about the films prior to
their public showings. We will distribute
a 1971-72 Coop Cinema program and up
o n request can let you know where and
when Coop films will be shown else-
where.
Th e new Coop Catalogu e is also avail-
able upon request.
FILM CO-OP WORKSHOP
NEW ARTS LAB ETC.
DEAR ALL,
PLEASE EXCUSE THE LAST WET
COMMUNICATION FROM HERE AND
DIG OUT ALL THE ENTHUSIASM YOU
ONCE HAD( HOPING IT HASNT BEEN
TOTALLY DISIPITATED BY RECENT
NON-HAPPENINGS)
WE NEED YOU YOURMEMBERSHIP
(YES AND THE BREAD YOU HAVNT PAID
YET) YOUR ACTIVITY YOUR DISCU-
SIONS DICISIONS THOUGHTS QUES-
TIONS
YOUR LEARNING AND YOUR
TEACHING YOUR PRESENCE
I HAVE YOUR NAME BECAUSE YOU
WERE ONCE INTERESTED IN THE FILM
CO-OP. IF YOUR NO LONGER INTEREST-
ED SILENCE ( BYE-BYE) IF YOU ARE
STILL INTERESTED GET IN TOUCH
WITH ME( GARETH COOK) HELP ME
MAKE THE WORKSHOP YOUR WORK-
SHOP THATS WHY IM HERE
ACTUALITY,S TESTS ARE BEING
RUN ON BOTH THE PRINTER AND THE
PROCESSOR TO DETERMINE THE BEST
EXPOSURE/DEV.SPEED FOR PRINT
MATERIAL
WE NEED ACURATELY EXPOSED
NON VITAL CAMERA STOCK TO RUN
SIMILAR TESTS ON TO DETERMINE
BEST DEV.SPEED FOR ORIGINAL CAM-
ERA WORK I ANTICIPATE THIS WILL BE
COMPLETED FIRST IT WOULD DEPEND
WHO WANTED WHAT FIRST AND WHO
CAME AND DID IT
SO FAR YOU ARE JUST NAMES ON A
LIST TO ME ( BAR4OR5) I AM “IN RESI-
DENCE” –
TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY
FRIDAY 12.30-6.00&&
ALSO EITHER SATURDAY OR SUN-
DAY 12.30-6.00 GIVE ME A RING AND
SAY WHEN
YOULL BE HERE AND ILL ARRANGE
TO BE HERE OUTSIDE THOSE TIMES
IF YOU HAVE CAMERA STOCK TO
DEVELOP BRING IT IN
IF YOU HAVE DEVELOPED STOCK TO
PRINT BRING IT IN
BUT BRING YOURSELF IDEARS
EFFORTS
LOVE GARETH
(HOME) 731-0931IRAT RECEP.387-2605
IF THEY CANT/WONT FIND ME
LEAVE A MESSAGE AND ’PHONE NO.
CHRONOLOGY OF events at Better Books, organised by Bob Robert Fraser Gallery has prints of exper- more ‘serious’ work at Arts Lab – during many of these film-makers had been Markopoulos and Martial Raysse
EVENTS AND Cobbing & Gustav Metzger – screenings imental film and will not loan them for 1968 Stan Vanderbeek, Gregory clearly moving in this direction before
DEVELOPMENTS 1966-76 include Kurt Kren’s Actionist films and screenings – desperate to get promised Markopolous (Gammelion), Warren similar North American work had arrived 4 OCTOBER 1969
John Latham’s Speak – nature of event New American Cinema films – Co-op use Sonbert and Marguerite Paris (represent- in London New Arts Lab aka Institute for Research
leads to significant media and public Spontaneous Festival profits to buy 6 ing Millennium Film Workshop and into Art & Technology (IRAT) opens –
A DETAILED GUIDE TO attention films from Robert Pike’s Creative Film showing Charles Levine) all present 12-17 NOVEMBER 1968 David Curtis runs the cinema, while
Society including works by Ian Hugo, shows, though none deposit films for Co- Curtis and Dwoskin travel to the six-day Malcolm Le Grice and Carla Liss organ-
THE PERIOD
Plans to use Jeanetta Cochrane Theatre Kuri, Al Sens, Paul Bartel, Scott Bartlett, op distribution. “Europ” (European Co-op) meeting at the ise the Co-op – following an initial con-
Excerpted from a work-in-progress, with (set up by Jim Haynes) for late night Robert Pike – by this time Co-op have Undependent Film Centre in Munich – tact through Carolee Schneemann, Le
particular bias toward the early formative independent screenings – new Co-op approximately 8 hours of films, and JANUARY 1968 film-makers Birgit and Wilhelm Hein Grice persuades American financier
years draft constitution includes renamed mag- British film-makers slowly begin to start John Collins presents screening at psy- invite over 40 colleagues to the meeting, Victor Herbert to donate £3,000 towards
azine (Cinim) and outlines structure of making work chedelic club Middle Earth which was which is inconclusive, only leading to the Co-op equipment and purchases Debrie
1966 the organisation raided by police – Collins impulsively publication of Supervisuell magazine step printer and Houston-Fewless
Bob Cobbing (a concrete poet who had Matusow thrown out of Co-op due to sus- moves event to basement of planned (edited by Klaus Schoener) – plans for a neg/reversal processor – installed by
previously organised film societies and 13 OCTOBER 1966 picion of motives based on alleged pilfer- “Boooooks” store which was also raided European co-op had evolved from discus- crane, the equipment damages the adjoin-
other arts clubs in Hendon and Finchley) London Film-Makers’ Co-operative ing from Spontaneous Festival receipts – after complaints from residents – leads to sions initiated by P. Adams Sitney and ing pub forcing Le Grice and Drummond
left teaching in 1965 to work in paper- (LFMC) officially formed at meeting at replaced by new executive committee of the loss of lease for the new shop and Shirley Clarke at Knokke – Curtis sees to fix the brickwork – during IRAT peri-
back department of Better Books shop on Better Books: Matusow as chairman, Cobbing, Dwoskin, Hartog, Trevor Collins again parts company with Rohfilm (W+B Hein) and recognises aes- od LFMC filmmakers make many signif-
New Compton Street (around the corner Cobbing and Francis secretaries – Co-op Peters, John Collins Cobbing and the Co-op thetic similarities with Le Grice, whose icant works
from 94 Charing Cross Road) – organises draft telegram to Mekas, declaring inten- Talla is also screened – at this time
29 APRIL 1967 30 JANUARY – 27 FEBRUARY 1968
Cinema 65 film club there showing for- tion to “shoot shoot shoot” – unlikely that Germany has 3 regional co-ops, as well Annabel Nicolson moves to London,
eign, experimental, non-commercial and the telegram was ever sent, it may just “14-Hour Technicolor Dream”, hippy Malcolm Le Grice, a painter who had as P.A.P. (Progressive Art Productions starts to visit Co-op and becomes
unknown films – Ray Durgnat, Philip have been mocked-up by Hartog for London’s gathering of the tribes, at graduated from the Slade in 1963, takes distribution and print sales) – Austrian, involved in IRAT Gallery – had already
Crick, John Collins in frequent atten- reproduction in Cinim and elsewhere Alexandra Palace – intended as fund rais- Curtis to the “Young Contemporaries Dutch and Italian co-ops also present at made first film Abstract No. 1 under
dance at regular Friday night screenings – er for IT but too many tickets were given 1968” show at the Royal Institute meeting influence of Len Lye / Norman McLaren
in ’65 the screenings are meant to pro- away for free – live bands inc. Pink Galleries which includes Photo Film and later significantly influences trend to
voke and encourage; by ’66, it becomes Floyd, Crazy World of Arthur Brown, (Based on Muybridge) by Fred NOVEMBER 1968 expanded and participatory film pieces
apparent that more coherent organisation Alexis Korner, The Pretty Things, The Drummond, Horizon by Lutz Becher and Carla Liss returns to New York and nego-
is needed as more people become inter- Move, plus happenings (Yoko Ono), work by other St. Martins students of Le tiates with Mekas – agreement to send the NOVEMBER 1969
ested in making and distributing films – films and light shows – BBC TV make Grice NAC prints from the previous European ‘RAT Cinema’ opens with several screenings of
films usually projected in the shop (sur- the documentary “Man Alive: What Is A tour to London on condition that Liss will Mare’s Tail (which is distributed by Other
rounded by books), and only occasional- Happening?” at the event LATE FEBRUARY 1968 manage them – Bob Cobbing demands an Cinema, not the Co-op) – Open Screenings
ly in the basement (which was used for Le Grice shows Castle One (The Light “Extraordinary General Meeting” (some held every Tuesday – projection at IRAT done
poetry, exhibitions and theatre / happen- JULY 1967 Bulb Film) at Arts Lab under pseudonym resentment at the hiring of an American) mostly by Fred Drummond, Al Deval, Graham
Second issue of Cinim (edited by Philip “Minima Maas” and becomes directly Ewens and Mike Leggett – access to own the-
ings, such as Jeff Nuttall’s People Show)
Crick, designed and produced by Steve involved with Co-op activities – Curtis Malcolm Le Grice mounts his exhibition atre space provides filmmakers with more free-
MARCH 1966 Dwoskin, published by the Co-op) and Le Grice (with Drew Elliot) draw up “Location? Duration?” in the Arts Lab dom to experiment with projection and expand-
Jonas Mekas posts an open letter to New plans for processing/printing equipment gallery – large paintings, constructions, ed cinema – English Film-Makers’ series show-
York Film-Makers’ Co-operative mem- SUMMER 1967 to be housed at Arts Lab drawings and films – his screenings on 1 cases new films coming out of the workshop –
bers stating that, through the persistence UFO club closes (later to be revitalised at & 2 November include recent works Peter Weibel & Valie Export, Wilhelm & Birgit
of Barbara Rubin, a London Co-op is the Roundhouse) – Jim Haynes and Jack 17 MARCH 1968 completed on new printing / processing Hein, Warren Sonbert and other international
forming and will be run by Barry Miles, Henry Moore lease 182 Drury Lane for “Battle of Grosvenor Square” anti- equipment which hint at Co-op’s materi- filmmakers present shows during this period
and based at Indica (a bookstore and the Arts Lab Vietnam War demonstration is document- alist direction for next few years
gallery on Southampton Row) – planned ed by a group of Co-op filmmakers Curtis travels to USA for 2 weeks – goes to
film fundraiser at Albert Hall (following AUGUST 1967 including Dwoskin, Hartog and Michael 18 NOVEMBER 1968 New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles to
on from the “Wholly Communion” poet- Co-op Bulletin No. 5 announces plans for Nyman – some footage sold to BBC TV David Curtis and 10 others resign from gather material for his book Experimental
ry reading, which featured Ginsberg, lecture series on various aspects of film- news Arts Lab following disagreements with Cinema, which will be written over next 18
Ferlinghetti, and Trocchi the previous 15 OCTOBER 1966 making to encourage production – John Jack Moore over the future direction of months
year) – talk of establishing London Co-op First official Co-op screening forms part Collins made executive officer of Co-op, APRIL 1968 the organisation – Sandy Daley takes
of the Roundhouse Rave – launch party but is later asked to leave for allegedly Curtis and Hartog arrange 12 city univer- over management of cinema – Arts Lab is
as base for European distribution
of IT (International Times) newspaper embezzling profits from Cinim sity tour for P. Adams Sitney’s massive forced to close by bad debts six months FURTHER READING
MAY 1966 held at the Roundhouse – includes Pink “Travelling Avant-Garde Film later
Mekas says in second letter that the Floyd, Soft Machine and 6-hour film pro- 18 AUGUST 1967 Exposition” that premieres at the NFT A BRIEF BIBLIOGRAPHY
LFMC will start in July – plans to spend gramme featuring Balch, Dwoskin, and Negotiated by Curtis, Cobbing and Co-op 22-28 April – tour has an huge effect on 26 NOVEMBER 1968
$2,000 on prints for 3 programmes for Latham – IT, the press organ for the hold first screening at Drury Lane Arts burgeoning critics and film-makers At the Co-op meeting, Bob Cobbing, BOOKS AND MANUSCRIPTS
Albert Hall show in June (the show never British cultural underground was pub- Lab (before its official opening) around the country and is first major Philip Crick and John Latham resign – Berke, Joseph (editor) Counter Culture: The
happened) – Co-op committee at this lished by Jim Haynes, John Hopkins opportunity to see this work in England – Cobbing replaced as treasurer by Le Creation of an Alternative Society (Peter
SEPTEMBER 1967
time: Bob Cobbing, Phillip Crick, John (Hoppy), Barry Miles and Jack Moore, Curtis again tries to secure NAC tour Grice – by late ’69 Dwoskin and Hartog Owen, 1969)
Collins, Paul Francis, Simon Hartog, Ray and edited by Tim McGrath Tony Godwin sells Better Books to prints for Coop – to coincide with Essex have also left, severing ties with early Curtis, David (editor) A Directory of British
Durgnat, Michael O’Casey, Les Philby, Collins Publishers who halt all cultural University screenings, Simon Field and Better Books community Film & Video Artists (Arts Council/University
of Luton Press, 1995)
Stewart Kington – general ethos is an 20 OCTOBER 1966 activities – Cobbing given one month’s Peter Sainsbury publish only issue of
Curtis, David Experimental Cinema: A Fifty-
enthusiasm for filmmaking (in addition to Matusow’s presence secures good atten- notice to leave – Film collection moves Platinum Following the Arts Lab walk-out, Co-op
Year Evolution (Studio Vista, 1971)
viewing) despite a lack of knowledge or dance to the press conference which temporarily to Dwoskin’s flat in Notting again has no permanent base – film col- Dickinson, Margaret (editor) Rogue Reels:
experience announces the Co-op at their Better Hill – office to Cobbing’s flat, then 17-18 MAY 1968 lection is housed at Covent Garden flat of Oppositional Film in Britain, 1945-90 (BFI,
Books HQ – subsequent article in Town Hartog’s, then Curtis & Biddy Peppin’s “Parallel Cinema” meeting at ICA to dis- David Curtis and Biddy Peppin, printing 1999)
Harvey Matusow arrives from New York, magazine proclaims Steve Dwoskin, cuss the possibility of an independent dis- / processing equipment in Malcolm Le Durgnat, Raymond Sexual Alienation in the
where he had been involved in fringes of Andrew Meyer, Simon Hartog, Bob 25 SEPTEMBER 1967 tribution collective – over 100 people Grice’s garage in Harrow, mail goes via Cinema (Studio Vista, 1972)
underground scene – had previously Cobbing, and Matusow “some of Arts Lab opens and includes theatre, cin- present including Marc Karlin (Cinema address of Carla Liss and Nicholas Dusinberre, Peter du Kay (Deke) English
Avant-Garde Cinema (unpublished thesis,
spent time in jail for perjury during London’s most active underground film- ema, coffee shop, gallery – Haynes asks Action, later Berwick St Collective), Albery
1977)
McCarthy trials – an incorrigible hustler, makers” Curtis to run cinema in basement – opens Peter Block (24 Frames Distribution),
Dwoskin, Stephen Film Is… The International
he got things done but aroused much sus- with disastrous week long run of Echoes Derek Hill (New Cinema Club), Ron DECEMBER 1968 Free Cinema (Peter Owen, 1975)
picion 31 OCTOBER – 5 NOVEMBER 1966 of Silence by Peter Emanuel Goldman – Orders and Tony Wickert (Angry Arts, Co-op holds several fundraising screen- Gidal, Peter (editor) Structural Film Anthology
“Spontaneous Festival of Underground Open Screenings held there every later Liberation Films), John McWilliam ings in late ’68 – early ’69 including (BFI, 1976)
Films” at Jeannetta Cochrane Theatre – 6 Tuesday (Electric Cinema) and Tattooists those at All Saints Hall in Ladbroke
JUNE 1966 Gidal, Peter Materialist Film (Routledge,
Approximately 20-25 people attend 2 Co- day long schedule includes films by International (Dick Fontaine et al) – Grove and Living Arts Workshop, Surrey 1989)
op planning meetings – draft code of Dwoskin, Keen, Balch, Matusow, Meyer 26 SEPTEMBER 1967 meeting leads to a Parallel Cinema infor- Hein, Birgit Film Im Underground (Ullstein
EARLY 1969 Verlag, 1971)
practice drawn up by Miles, Cobbing, and London School of Film Technique Malcolm Le Grice present to see Ray mation office being established at ICA –
Le Grice, Malcolm Abstract Film and Beyond
Jim Haynes, Paul Francis, M. Ellis, Peter students as well as significant interna- Durgnat introduce films by Kurt Kren at committee (led by Philip Drummond) Carolee Schneemann arrives in London
(Studio Vista, 1977)
Whitehead and Matusow (who is named tional work by Anger, Brakhage, Mekas ICA – Curtis initiates plans for film forms with intention to establish a circuit (stays until 1973, at one point living in a Le Grice, Malcolm Experimental Cinema in
as secretary) using Better Books address etc – just about every piece of experi- workshop at Arts Lab – 2 Co-op pro- of 50 ‘electric’ cinemas, distribute pack- tent outside Co-op) – prints Plumb Line the Digital Age (BFI, 2001)
as base mental film that was available in London grammes at Arts Lab in October, plus ages of short films, and provide a central at Co-op – Schneemann is one of several MacDonald, Scott A Critical Cinema 2
(from Co-op, BFI, Connoisseur, Peter Kubelka in person at ICA (arranged booking agency for independent 16mm Americans who wind up in London to (University of California Press, 1992)
1 JULY 1966 Contemporary Films distribution) is by Dwoskin and Cobbing) before screen- films – Godard’s Le Gai Savoir is chosen avoid Vietnam War, and who will gradu- MacDonald, Scott A Critical Cinema 3
Letter from Paul Francis to Mekas shown – followed by 6 nights of Open ings cease following closure of Better as a test film toward establishing the cir- ate toward the Co-op inc. Barbara (University of California Press, 1998)
Mekas, Jonas New American Cinema Group
announces Co-op is being set up inde- Screenings at Better Books – first issue of Books on 2 October – Co-op screenings cuit – as a direct development, Peter Schwartz and Lynne Tilman
and Film-Makers’ Cooperative(s): The Early
pendent of Better Books and Indica – by IT includes 4 page supplement on the at ICA demonstrate its independence Sainsbury and Nick Hart-Williams estab-
Years (Anthology Film Archives, 1999)
reply receives Western Union cable on event from the Arts Lab and reluctance to move lish The Other Cinema in 1970, which David Curtis fails to persuade the Slade Mudie, Peter “London Film-Makers’ Co-oper-
11th with message “GOOD START AND organisation there – beginning of split becomes the most active and successful to host Co-op screenings, and is refused ative” (unpublished work-in-progress)
GOOD SPEED WE ARE WITH YOU” NOVEMBER 1966 between ex-Better Books and Arts Lab of the independent distributors, repre- an application to the Arts Council to O’Pray, Michael (editor) The British Avant-
signed Brakhage, Breer, Brooks, First issue of Cinim is published; edited group’s different views on how the Co-op senting Godard, Herzog, Straub plus assist with screenings and lectures in Garde Film 1926 to 1995: An Anthology of
Emshwiller, Jacobs, Markopoulos, by Phillip Crick, designed by Lawrie should develop – 41 films in Co-op dis- Dwoskin and many political and third England and Europe – negotiations with Writings (Arts Council/University of Luton
Mekas, Vanderbeek, Brigante, Clarke, Moore, and published by the Co-op – Co- tribution library at this point world filmmakers Camden Council for their support of the Press, 1996
Rees, A.L. A History of Experimental Film and
Rogosin op has about 50 members and distributes New Arts Lab – most Co-op screenings
Video (BFI, 1999)
films by Dwoskin and Meyer – First AUTUMN 1967 SPRING 1968 during this time are at the Electric
Walker, John A. John Latham: The Incidental
12 JULY 1966 LFMC bulletin distributed to members Co-op films shown at Liverpool Bluecoat Le Grice and Hartog complete new draft Cinema on Portobello Road, organised Person, His Art and Ideas (Middlesex
Co-op Committee meeting at which a 5 Arts Forum festival, who also award constitution for Co-op which includes by Liss University Press, 1995)
page draft constitution is written includ- 26 NOVEMBER 1966 money for the completion of films by provisions for liberal division of labour,
25-26 JANUARY 1969
ing plans for screenings, distribution, Matusow complains to Mekas by letter Steve Dwoskin, Simon Hartog, Jeff Keen, and shared equipment and facilities – CATALOGUES AND
newsletter and quarterly magazine (then that US visitors gravitate to Indica David Larcher, John Latham and Roland agree to appoint a paid secretary for more Conference of Arts Labs organised by EXHIBITION PROGRAMMES
called Reel) – Durgnat, Francis, Hartog, “although Miles has never been to a Co- Lewis – Co-op encourages a shift to film- efficient management to generate revenue Phillippa Jeffrey and the Cambridge Arts First International Underground Film Festival
Matusow, Leonard Foreman, R. Hudson, op meeting” – a later letter from Barbara making rather than film watching – for film production Lab – attended by representatives from (NFT, 1970)
and Jeff Keen write Mekas again explain- Rubin to IT staff indicates that NY film- Anthony ‘Scotty’ Scott begins to assem- Drury Lane Arts Lab, LFMC, Oxford A Survey of the Avant-Garde in Britain
ing preference to establish independent makers reluctant to send films to London ble The Longest Most Meaningless Movie JULY 1968 Film-Makers’ Co-op, Artists’ Information (Gallery House, 1972)
base despite friendly competition of the 2 because of Matusow’s involvement in the World, an endless film entirely con- Peter Gidal (having arrived from New Register, Time Out, Release, Cybernetic Second International Avant-Garde Film
bookstores – Open Screenings start to structed by the progressive inclusion of York the previous month) attends screen- Theatre, Portable Theatre, Edinburgh Festival (NFT/ICA, 1973)
outnumber pre-selected programmes at NOVEMBER 1966-JANUARY 1967 footage found around Soho production ing at Arts Lab and brings along two of Combination and the Arts Council – First Festival of Independent British Cinema
Better Books Co-op holds 11 Open Screenings and houses his own films – Room (Double Take) organisations share information and dis- (ICW/Arnolfini, 1975)
many other programmes at Better Books scheduled to be shown in 2 week’s time, cuss collaboration – Tony Rayns and Festival of Expanded Cinema (ICA, 1976)
SUMMER 1966 OCTOBER 1967 when Curtis, Hartog, Le Grice, Dwoskin, Roger Hammond meet with Co-op for Arte Inglese Oggi: 1960-76 (British Council,
CHRISTMAS 1966 Opposition to Jonas Mekas who proposes Fred Drummond see and are impressed first time
David Curtis graduates from the Slade Milan, 1976)
summer ’66 and travels to New York to Hoppy opens UFO club on Tottenham that he, Stan Brakhage, Ken Kelman, P. with Gidal’s work – 8mm films by Derby Independent Film Awards (Derby
see films – on his return he frequents Court Road and David Curtis begins film Adams Sitney (a group that would later Goldsmith’s sculpture student Mike MAY 1969 Playhouse, 1976)
Better Books and helps with film shows – screenings, which first augment light form Anthology Film Archives’ contro- Dunford are also well received – many Last issue of Cinim (edited by Simon Perspectives on British Avant-Garde Film
a week of Open Screenings at the London shows on Friday nights, in between live versial “Essential Cinema” committee) new film-makers begin to emerge without Hartog, produced by Steve Dwoskin, (Hayward Gallery, 1977)
Free School is presented as part of the performances by psychedelic rock groups will select New American Cinema films any substantial knowledge of previous published by the Coop) A Perspective on English Avant-Garde Film
Notting Hill Fayre – Steve Dwoskin, on a for European distribution – Jonas plans to avant-gardes – aesthetic and conceptual (Arts Council/British Council, 1978)
Fulbright Scholarship to London College arrive with films in September ’67 (he trends that later become specific to the Camden Council offers building at 1 New British Avant-Garde Films (Edinburgh
of Printing, brings his early films with JANUARY 1967 didn’t) – Ray Durgnat briefly Co-op LFMC start to surface Robert Street for temporary use, rent-free Film Festival, 1978)
him from New York – meeting with John LFMC Bulletin Number 2 notes that film chairman, Ron Geesin replaces Paul – IRAT (Institute for Research in Art & Film As Film: Formal Experimentation in
Latham leads to screening at the Fayre, supply for exhibition is ‘drying up’ – Co- Francis as joint secretary with Bob SUMMER 1968 Technology) is formed as an umbrella Film, 1910-1975 (Hayward Gallery, 1979)
seen by Cobbing – Co-op is by now Cobbing After his tour ends, Sitney returns to NY organisation to administrate different Film London (NFT/LFMC, 1979)
op screenings become repetitive due to with all films from the NAC Exposition groups that will occupy the space – Joe
established as a group though not offi- Unpacking 7 Films (Arts Council, 1980)
cially formed the lack of available filmsDerek Hill starts New Cinema Club and tour –– David Curtis meets Carla Liss, Tilson and J.G. Ballard on advisory board The Other Side: European Avant-Garde
shows films initially at Mermaid Theatre American artist and friend of Mekas who – LFMC members spend the summer ren- Cinema 1960-1980 (American Federation of
SEPTEMBER 1966 and ICA – Vaughan-Rogosin Films start will become central to Co-op organisa- ovating the space, which include many Arts, 1983)
Destruction In Art Symposium (DIAS) at FEBRUARY 1967 to buy American experimental work for tional structure – First LFMC distribution different artistic groups and encourage Light Years: A Twenty Year Celebration
venues throughout London includes Matusow complains to Mekas that the UK distribution, including Anger, catalogue published (loose metal binding, cross-disciplinary work – cinema (David (LFMC, 1986)
Brakhage, Kuchar and Warhol assembled by Liss and Curtis, cover by Curtis), LFMC (Carla Liss & Malcolm Live In Your Head (Whitechapel, 2000)
Dwoskin) – list approximately 100 films Le Grice), video (TVX / John Hopkins & Film-Makers On Tour (Arts Council, 1977,
NOVEMBER 1967 plus addendum of experimental films dis- Til Roemer), theatre (Roland Miller, later 1980)
Bob Cobbing and John Collins announce tributed by Vaughan-Rogosin – no doubt Victoria Miller & Martin Russell) mime Independent Cinema One: Directory of
plans for new bookshop and arts centre because of present state of flux, no Co-op (Will Spoor), music (Hugh Davies), pho- Independent British Cinema (1978)
called “Boooooks” at 80 Long Acre – to address or personnel names are printed – tography (Ian Robertson), gallery (Biddy National Film Theatre calendars and pro-
include a cinema plus sound facilities and Sitney had advocated integration of the 2 Peppin & Pamela Zoline, later Judith gramme notes (1960-1980)
editing equipment (they call it an active groups and there are soon propos- Clute), printing (John Collins) electronics Progressive Art Productions catalogue (1969)
“Eventure Room”) – and write to als towards uniting Arts Lab and Co-op (David Jeffrey) metal and plastics Light Cone distribution catalogue (1987)
American Cinema filmmakers asking for factions: Arts Lab group: Curtis, Le (Martin Shann, later Bernard Rhodes) London Film-Makers’ Co-operative distribu-
prints Grice, Bennett Yahya, Cordley Coit / Co- and cybernetics (John & Dianne Lifton) – tion catalogue (1968, 1971, 1972, 1974, 1978,
op group: Dwoskin, Hartog, Cobbing, renovations to the building are completed 1993)
22 NOVEMBER 1967 Collins by September
List of films in distribution includes 60 PERIODICALS
titles, few of which are home-grown AUGUST 1968 Dwoskin and Hartog leave the Co-op Cinim, Platinum, Afterimage, Independent
Scotty’s Longest Most Meaningless organisation – Dwoskin will later remove Cinema, Cinemantics, Cinema Rising,
DECEMBER 1967 Movie in the World is over 5hrs of 35mm his LFMC-distributed films to The Other Readings, Screen, Undercut, Filmwaves, Films
Knokke-le-Zoute “Exprmntl 4” festival material by the time it is premiered at Cinema and Filming, Sight and Sound, Art & Artists,
and competition in Belgium proves a Arts Lab … 10 hours long by 1970 … Studio International, Time Out, International
watershed, whose influence leads to the could still be growing for all we know 25 AUGUST – 13 SEPTEMBER 1969 Times
LFMC establishing itself on an interna- Edinburgh Film Festival invites Co-op to
SEPTEMBER 1968 present an extended series programmes –
tional level – 20 British films submitted,
Curtis writes the report “Subsidies to includes world premiere of David MISSING IN ACTION
though only 5 shown in competition – Independent Filmmakers: The present sit- Larcher’s Mare’s Tail, as well as new
Steve Dwoskin wins the Solvay Prize, uation and how it might be improved”, work by Le Grice, Drummond, Dunford,
and his films Chinese Checkers and which calls for new funding structures – Gidal and others – programmes also fea-
ANTHONY ‘SCOTTY’ SCOTT
Soliloquy are chosen by P. Adams Sitney Curtis & Le Grice are in favour of work- ture many NAC films, Newsreels and the Over the lengthy period of research, only
a few films or filmmakers have managed
for his New American Cinema tour – ing with the BFI to secure funding, while Italian Co-op – expanded performances
Wavelength (Michael Snow) wins first Dwoskin and Hartog strongly resist the by Glasgow’s Exit Group, Le Grice, Fred to escape our investigations. One person
prize as Sitney begins to consider his piv- idea Drummond and Scotty’s Swiz Events that has remained elusive to all lines of
otal definition of ‘Structural Film’ – enquiry was Anthony ‘Scotty’ Scott,
11 SEPTEMBER 1968 20 SEPTEMBER 1969 maker of The Longest, Most Meaningless
David Curtis regards the festival as a sig-
First LFMC screening of 1968 at the Arts Gimpel Fils Gallery begins a short lived Movie in the World, (which is also ‘miss-
nificant moment for London film-makers, Lab– Mike Dunford and Fred Drummond attempt to represent filmmakers and sell
though Dwoskin and Cobbing play it show new work ing’, despite the fact that it must be at
prints as art editions, in association with
down, crystallising differences between least several weeks long by now). If any-
PAP and Edition Claude Givaudan –
Dwoskin’s subjective view and Curtis’ 19 SEPTEMBER 1968 Peter Gidal is only LFMC filmmaker to one knows where Scotty might be, or if
(and other’s) increasing attention to Michael Snow and Joyce Wieland at the participate – screening of selected works he should come to light during the course
process ICA, a visit that helps to perpetuate a at ICA also features films by Robert of this exhibition, please point him in our
general shift on part of LFMC practition- Beavers, Stan Brakhage, Wilhelm & direction!
1968
Following Knokke, Curtis starts to screen ers toward formalist work, although Birgit Hein, Kurt Kren, Gregory email scotty@lfmc.org
 SHOOT SHOOT SHOOT 7
1970 document underground cinema activity in DECEMBER 1972 JANUARY-APRIL 1974 SEPTEMBER 1975 First conference of the Independent Marc Karlin from UK, among many oth-
Le Grice starts to make colour-field films Britain and later withdraw offer before he Le Grice begins to regularly contributeBarbara Meter and Peter Gidal collabo- Le Grice and Gidal begin to withdraw Filmmakers’ Association (IFA), organ- ers, take part in debates – Le Grice and
on Coop workshop equipment, beginning is able to decline – BFI appoints Mamoun film column “Vision” to Studio rate to establish a Dutch touring circuit from organisational activities (though ised by Simon Hartog, Claire Johnston McCall also present expanded cinema
with Love Story – his first expanded per- Hassan as Production Department International (which continues until for Co-op filmmakers – Mike Dunford & they stay on the Co-op committee), after and Paul Willemen work at the Scottish Arts Council Gallery
formance with this material is Horror Supervisor (following Bruce Beresford’s 1977) Sally Potter, David Dye, Gill Eatherley, mutually deciding to step aside to allow
Film 1 (1971) resignation), which marks a shift to fund- Tony Hill, Le Grice, Annabel Nicolson new leaders to direct Co-op initiatives MAY-JUNE 1976 SEPTEMBER 1976
ing longer (feature) film production 1973 and William Raban each present shows in Peter Gidal presents “Structural Films” Guy Sherwin writes another application
Rodney Wilson becomes Film Officer at Peter Gidal commences teaching at the Amsterdam, Groningen and Utrecht NOVEMBER 1975 season at NFT – 18 screenings of interna- to BFI for catalogue and relocation costs
Arts Council and implements funding for AUGUST 1971 Royal College of Arts – Anne Rees-Mogg LFMC opens at the Piano Factory – tional work, with almost half devoted to – William Raban resigns from Co-op
artists’ films Second LFMC distribution catalogue establishes a film course at Chelsea MAY 1974 Space Studios again occupy part of the Co-op members – Structural Film workshop to teach at St. Martin’s School
(A5, black with pink lettering) features School of Art Malcolm Le Grice takes Co-op films to building – Co-op uses BFI grant pay first Anthology (edited by Peter Gidal) is pub- of Art – Steve Farrer takes over the vacant
around 400 films, by over 160 filmmak- screen at Millennium Film Workshop in salaries since Carla Liss left in ’71 – pro- lished by BFI and includes revised ver- position – Annabel Nicolson has a second
ers – distribution is still being managed Camden ’73 Festival includes “Festival New York and Carnegie Institute in jectors that had been used since IRAT in sion of Gidal’s “Theory and Definition of period of running the Co-op cinema
by Carla Liss and Barbara Schwartz dur- of British Films – London Film-Makers’ Pittsburgh ’69 are replaced – second hand optical Structural/Materialist Film”, excerpt of
ing the transition period Co-op Mixed Show” at The Place Le Grice’s forthcoming book Abstract SEPTEMBER 1976
Film and Beyond, and new or reprinted LFMC begins to negotiates lease on
SEPTEMBER 1971 EARLY 1973 articles by and about filmmakers in the space above a laundry at 42 Gloucester
Official opening of the Co-op at the Dairy Le Grice invited to join the BFI programme Avenue, which is owned by British Rail
– Peter Gidal (completing his postgradu- Production Board (FIPB) to advise on
ate degree at the Royal College of Art) funding – Le Grice and Colin Young pre- JUNE-JULY 1976 OCTOBER 1975
becomes responsible Dairy cinema pro- pare a report on state of independent Berlin Film Festival includes new work Co-op again runs out of money – BFI
grammes with support of Roger filmmaking in Britain – Screen invite Le by Dwoskin, Le Grice and Raban agrees to pay basic running costs to end
Hammond – David Crosswaite is main Grice to commission and edit articles on of year
projectionist – discussion becomes an experimental film for a future issue, but AUGUST 1976
increasingly important part of screenings all are later rejected as they abandoned Co-op runs out of distribution catalogues, 10 OCTOBER-11 NOVEMBER 1976
(which may have led to a greater empha- the planned special issue so Deke Dusinberre asks BFI for grant to “LFMC First 10 Years” screening series
sis on literary discourse) – under Gidal, print new edition, but 2 applications are and party are organised by Deke
the cinema holds weekly screenings and FEBRUARY 1973 rejected (next catalogue is not published Dusinberre, with assistance from David
almost half of the slots are devoted to David Curtis joins the Arts Council Film until early 1978) Curtis – 4 mixed programmes of work
English-made films – through 1971-72, & Video sub-committee (later appointed illustrate the diversity of work made in
Malcolm Le Grice there is an increasing emphasis on new Assistant Film Officer in 1977) Co-op executive committee at this time and around the Co-op during its first
LFMC work – Co-op survives this period consists of Paul Botham, Mike Dunford, decade
JANUARY 1970 without any funding, all work is done by 16-18 MARCH 1973 Peter Gidal, Malcolm Le Grice, Anne
At IRAT, 5 days of open live-action and volunteers and cinema / distribution 3 days of Filmaktion events at Gallery Rees-Mogg, Chris Welsby NOVEMBER 1976
multi-screen events are held, mostly led income covers overheads – no heating House (core group plus David Deke Dusinberre takes over cinema pro-
by Annabel Nicolson, and include Le and no seating, audience sits on old mat- Crosswaite) inc. first performances of Afterimage No. 6 special issue gramming, Sherwin continues to run
Grice, Mike Dunford and Sally Potter – tresses on cinema floor Matrix & Gross Fog (Le Grice), Chair “Perspectives on English Independent workshop (with Steve Farrer) and
this inaugurates a period of intense devel- Installation (Eatherley) and 2’45” & Cinema” published by Simon Field – becomes acting Executive Representative
opment of expanded work by the core Carla Liss leaves, thereby severing the Diagonal (Raban) – Filmaktion formed includes articles by or about Cinema – Co-op receives funds towards imminent
LFMC group, quite unique from other last tie to the initial Co-op group and to as loose collective primarily consisting of Intermission at McCall/Schneemann Co-op screening, 12 June 1974 Action, Noel Burch, Mike Dunford, Deke relocation from Greater London Council
Photo by Alan Power
international examples Jonas Mekas and New York – Gidal Eatherley, Le Grice, Nicolson and Raban Dusinberre, Steve Dwoskin (by Paul and Gulbenkian Foundation
immediately insists that 50% of all future who develop expanded work for group printer and twin system projector for dub- Willemen), Jeff Keen (by Tony Rayns),
Issue one of Cinemantics (published by group bookings from the LFMC must be shows JUNE 1974 bing magnetic soundtracks installed – on Gidal’s Theory (Anne Cottringer), After a prolonged period of fundraising
John Mathews) English films, a policy that leads to a Anthony McCall presents Fire Piece at many film prints made at this time use Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen and renovation, the Other Cinema finally
greater international presence for Co-op 11 MAY 1973 Oxford MoMA this equipment (which accounts for the open their own theatre on Tottenham
JANUARY-FEBRUARY 1970 works – prior to this, majority of 2 programmes of Co-op films shown at number of magnetic sound prints still in 6-9 AUGUST 1976 Street (it closed after a year, later reopen-
Larry Kardish (from New York Museum European and domestic bookings had NFT, includes Botham, Crosswaite, Peter Gidal stops programming Co-op distribution) Deke Dusinberre organises the “Derby ing as the Scala)
of Modern Art) tours Britain for 2 weeks consisted of New American Cinema films Drummond, Du Cane, Hammond, cinema – Annabel Nicolson takes over Independent Film Awards” at Derby
with 3 1/2 hours of films from US and – Lynne Tilman manages distribution for Nicolson, Potter and Raban (assisted by Tony Hill) and temporarily Cinema attendance rises during first few Playhouse – an attempt to stimulate film- DECEMBER 1976
Canada a short time closes the space to widen it in order to months and 1975-76 season is very suc- making outside London – Fuji supplies Mary Pat Leece leaves distribution and is
5-7 JUNE 1973 better accommodate the expanded works cessful – Lis Rhodes is cinema organiser, film stock which is awarded to everyone succeeded by Felicity Sparrow –
APRIL 1970 New Co-op committee consists of 3 programmes at the Tate Gallery under she intends to present – Gidal also stops with help from Annabel Nicolson (per- included in programmes – work shown Malcolm Le Grice and others initite
J.G. Ballard exhibits crashed cars in the Malcolm Le Grice (chairman, workshop the title “Film as Structure” organised by writing for Time Out and is replaced by formances) and David Curtis (historical displays a wide range of artists, inde- moves to turn Co-op into a charitable
IRAT gallery organiser), Peter Gidal (treasurer, cinema Mick Hartney – 1st screening inc. Tony Rayns – Marjory Botham moves programmes) – Anne Rees-Mogg organ- pendent and political filmmaking trust, and investigate possibility of
organiser), Mike Dunford (secretary) Frampton, Kubelka, Sharits, Snow, other into Nicolson’s former position manag- ises open screenings on alternate beecoming a incorporated company
MAY 1970 2 nights are one-man shows presented by ing distribution Thursdays – William Raban and Guy 30 AUGUST-3 SEPTEMBER 1976
3 week season of late night underground OCTOBER 1971 Gidal and Le Grice Sherwin run the workshop for the first Edinburgh Film Festival presents
films at Roundhouse includes premiere of Opening of Co-op workshop at the Dairy, AUGUST 1974 year, and number of members also rises “International Forum on the Avant-
John Chamberlain’s 7-screen film Wide which is run by Le Grice and his former 20-27 JUNE 1973 7 programme retrospective of Steve rapidly – workshop membership fee is Garde” organised by Simon Field and
Chronology assembled by Mark Webber, edited
Point, produced by Alan Power (who also students – first film produced there is Walker Art Gallery “Filmaktion” shows Dwoskin at NFT raised from £1 to £5 (first increase since Peter Wollen – a week of screenings, by Travis Miles. With respect to Peter Mudie
funded films by Dwoskin and Larcher) Mike Leggett’s Shepherd’s Bush – during organised by William Raban and Anthea the move to the Dairy in ’71) – Mary Pat expanded cinema and discussions – (on whose manuscript this document was orig-
this period widespread use of cheap Hinds include Botham, Crosswaite, AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 1974 Leece takes over distribution, assisted by Regina Cornwell, Hollis Frampton, inally based) and David Curtis (who made a
JUNE 1970 German Orwo stock (much of it stolen Dunford, Eatherley, Hammond, Le Grice, 24 Frames presents “The New Avant- Deke Dusinberre Annette Michelson, Yvonne Rainer, Paul wealth of archival material available for
Mike Leggett and Ian Breakwell present from the BBC) accounts for mid-grey Nicolson, Pound and Raban – a week of Garde” series of 18 programmes at the Sharits, Michael Snow and Joyce research).
expanded shows at IRAT inc. Sheet and cast on many of the films screenings, expanded cinema and chil- NFT – showcases films they distribute Special issue of Studio International Wieland from USA, Chantal Akerman, If this article contains errors or omissions that
Unword dren’s workshops – Raban shoots a time- and consists almost exclusively of devoted to “Avant-Garde Film in England Raymond Bellour and Birgit Hein from you can help us correct for the future expanded
1972 lapse film of the event American work (John Du Cane is one of & Europe” – includes Peter Wollen’s Europe and Ian Christie, Peter Gidal, edition please email book@lfmc.org
SUMMER 1970 John Du Cane and Peter Gidal write reg- few English filmmakers they represent) – polemical article “The Two Avant-
BFI tries to negotiate a take-over of Co- ularly for Time Out over next 3 years – at the present time they carry approx. 350 Gardes” and “Theory and Definition of
op distribution their promotion of Co-op and related film and 50 videotapes – 24 Frames is a Structural/Materialist Film” by Peter
screenings at the NFT increase atten- commercial distributor directed particu- Gidal – plus articles on or by David
SEPTEMBER 1970 dance and awareness of activities larly towards TV sales Curtis, Deke Dusinberre on Expanding
Curtis, Field and Albie Thoms organise Cinema, David Dye, Ron Haselden,
“1st International Underground Film Gabrielle Stubbs and Annabel Nicolson 9 NOVEMBER 1974 Malcolm Le Grice on Kurt Kren, and
Festival”, a week of screenings at manage distribution from 1972-74 – First meeting of the Independent international reports by Birgit Hein,
National Film Theatre which attracts a institutional rentals increase as avant- Filmmakers’ Association at the RCA, Barbara Meter and Peter Weibel
large number of international filmmakers garde film stops being ‘underground’ and whose intent is to lobby to promote inde-
inc. Kurt Kren, Peter Kubelka, Paul becomes more accepted as an art form pendent film and video makers and 1976
Sharits, Jonas Mekas, Wener Nekes, encourage exchanges between theorists Jonathan Harvey, director of Acme (an
Tonino de Bernardi – programmes run 21 JANUARY 1972 and practitioners – organising committee organisation which provides artists with
from 10:30am to past midnight – Time Out publishes a long article on the includes Dwoskin, Gidal, Hartog, Nick access to abandoned houses on short-
exhausting and liberal survey of the inter- Co-op written by Irving Washington, Hart-Williams, Marc Karlin, Le Grice, term leases), opens the Acme Gallery in
national scene, approx 330 films in 100 comprising a history of the organisation Laura Mulvey and James Scott – initiated Covent Garden – Marilyn Halford works
hours – Oh Sensibility performance by and description of the current situation in response to a BBC TV programme by there part time and helps organise film
Otto Muehl was banned following public Melvyn Bragg which misrepresents con- events including shows by Lis Rhodes &
outcry because of plans to slaughter a MAY-JUNE 1972 temporary independent filmmaking prac- Ian Kerr, William Raban and Chris
chicken on the NFT stage – expanded Hamburg Filmschau includes 2 pro- tise in the UK Welsby
grammes of LFMC work
25 DECEMBER 1974- 4-11 JANUARY 1976
2 JUNE 1972 & 7 JULY 1972 4 JANUARY 1975 “Festival of Expanded Cinema” at ICA
“English Independent Cinema” at NFT, 4 “Exprmntl 5” festival at Knokke-Heist – organised by Deke Dusinberre and Simon
programmes organised by Gidal includes performance and multi-projection work is Field features 43 artists, both established
work by 17 filmmakers, inc. Crosswaite, excluded from competition so Malcolm and new filmmakers – includes works by
Dwoskin, Hammond, Schwartz and JULY 1973 Le Grice and several others refuse partic- Steve Farrer, Chris Garratt, Tony Hill,
Schneemann, with two screen films by The Arts Council’s “Committee of ipation – video is included for the first Derek Jarman, Anthony McCall, Annabel
Botham, Drummond, Raban & Welsby Enquiry into Films” (aka The time – Still Life With Pear (Mike Nicolson, William Raban, Lis Rhodes &
Attenborough Report), begun in 1971, is Dunford), Line Describing a Cone Ian Kerr, Guy Sherwin, Tony Sinden and
15 JULY 1972 finally published – leads to establishing (Anthony McCall) win awards, William many others – new filmmakers starting to
River Yar (Raban and Welsby) shown at the Art Film Division at the Arts Council Raban and Marilyn Halford also in com- come through include Robert Fearns,
Co-op – a group of new and younger and causes disruption at BFI – Mamoun petition – Sign (John Du Cane) is not Rob Gawthrop and Roger Hewins
film-makers begin to work with and Hassan resigns, replaced by Peter selected though P. Adams Sitney protests
through the LFMC including David Sainsbury, who initiates a shift to funding for its inclusion 14 JANUARY 1976
Parsons, Chris Welsby (Chelsea School of experimental film – Arts Council Premiere of David Larcher’s Monkey’s
of Art students) and Tim Bruce, Steve Artists’ Film and Video Sub-Committee 11-18 FEBRUARY 1975 Birthday at the Co-op – shot over several
Farrer, Ian Kerr, Lis Rhodes, John Smith provides the main source of funding for “First Festival of Independent British years around the world, the film makes
(North East London Polytechnic students Co-op filmmakers’ who seek production Cinema” at the Arnolfini Gallery in extensive use of LFMC workshop equip-
of Guy Sherwin) grants during the mid 1970s Bristol is organised by ICW (Independent ment
Cinema West), led by David Hopkins –
27 AUGUST 1972 3-16 SEPTEMBER 1973 many Co-op, political and independents 10-11 FEBRUARY 1976
events by Weibel & Export, Schneemann Anthony McCall presents Death Watch “Second Festival of Independent Avant- filmmakers and students travel from all Weekend seminar in response to Wollen’s
and Jeff Keen (whose show was invaded Beetle, a fire event at North Weald Garde Film” organised by Simon Field over the UK to attend – week of events “Two Avant-Gardes” article is organised
by ‘Crazy Otto’ because it wasn’t Airfield and David Curtis at NFT (films) and ICA include screenings, workshops, discus- at the Co-op by Deke Dusinberre – Le
provocative enough) – Afterimage No. 2 (expanded cinema) – Kurt Kren, Michael sions and expanded work Grice delivers a paper on relationship
published by Simon Field and Peter LATE 1972 Snow, Joyce Wieland, Jonas Mekas, Ken between theory and practice in his films,
Sainsbury to coincide with festival, Supplement to LFMC distribution cata- Jacobs, Barry Gerson, Taka Iimura, Peter 3-21 MARCH 1975 while Gidal and Wollen expand on their
devoted to articles on avant-garde film logue No. 2 is published (A5, black Kubelka, Valie Export, Peter Weibel and “Avant-Garde British Landscape Films” Studio International articles – Tony
cover, silver lettering) – lists approx 170 others attend from abroad – 105 filmmak- organised by Deke Dusinberre at Tate Rayns chairs the discussion
DECEMBER 1970 additional films that have been acquired ers represented in programmes that run Gallery, consists of 3 repeating daily pro-
Co-op decides to move out of Robert over past year, majority having been pro- from morning to early morning – grammes plus special evening events pre- FEBRUARY-MARCH 1976
Street and find its own location, in antic- duced by British filmmakers Filmaktion group present their last 4 sented by William Raban, Chris Welsby, “Arte Inglese Oggi” survey of British
ipation of the impending IRAT closure shows as part of the ICA programme – and Renny Croft – films by Jane Clark, artists organised by British Council at
2-15 OCTOBER 1972 Piero Heliczer runs a week long fringe Mike Duckworth and David Pearce also Palazzo Reale, Milan – Richard Cork
JANUARY 1971 “Survey of the Avant-Garde in Britain” festival in the Co-op cinema – Austrian shown invites David Curtis to advise on film
Camden Council offers the abandoned curated by Rosetta Brooks at Gallery TV station ORF make a documentary of programme which includes Dunford,
Dairy at 13a Prince of Wales Crescent House, 50 Princes Gate – third part of the the festival MARCH 1975 Dye, Gidal, Haselden, Keen, McCall,
(building is partly occupied by Space exhibiton features film, video, installa- Camden Council give 6 months notice to Nicolson, Raban, Rhodes, Sherwin and
subsidised artists’ studios) – Co-op is tion and performance – work by many OCTOBER 1973 Co-op – announcing intention to reclaim Welsby – several of these go to Italy to
given the entire first floor for a cinema, Co-op filmmakers inc. Du Cane, Tony Rayns’ long review of the 2nd the Dairy building for a housing project present expanded events
workshop and distribution facilities, its Dwoskin, Gidal, Leggett, McCall, Raban Avant-Garde Festival in Sight & Sound
first dedicated base in its 4-year history – and others but not Crosswaite, Hammond prompts Le Grice to write a letter under APRIL 1975 MARCH 1976
many new members becoming involved and Le Grice – Gallery House is a tem- then pseudonym Mary Lou Grace, ironi- Co-op apply for a grants from BFI Group Co-op makes new application to the
with Co-op at this time are Le Grice’s porary alternative exhibition space man- cally praising the magazine for finally Support Fund and Gulbenkian restructured BFI for running costs but by
former St. Martin’s students – Paul aged by Rosetta Brooks and Sigi Krauss getting around to acknowledging ‘real’ Foundation for workshop funding –BFI receives no subsidy at all for a 4 month
Botham, David Crosswaite, John Du between Spring 1972 and Summer 1973 film application is turned down but Peter period – BFI eventually makes interim
Cane, Gill Eatherley, Roger Hammond, Sainsbury offers to help them re-apply payment to cover period until lease on
Stuart Pound and William Raban join NOVEMBER 1972 John Du Cane publishes only issue of Fitzroy Road expires – lease is subse-
over the next year – considerable renova- Annabel Nicolson travels to New York, Light One, dedicated to the work of MAY 1975 quently extended to December ’76 (Co-
tions needed at the Dairy take 9 months, Buffalo, Toronto, Vancouver and Michael Snow Le Grice presents programme of LFMC op eventually moves to Gloucester
shared labour adds to developing collec- Montreal with several recent works by films at the Oberhausen International Avenue in Autumn 1977)
tive ideology Co-op members – her memoir of the trip DECEMBER 1973 Short Film Festival
appears as “Canadian Fragments” in Art Le Grice presents LFMC films in MARCH-APRIL 1976
“American Underground Film Festival” & Artists, April 1973 Stockholm and other Swedish cities Arts Council “Video Art” show at Le Grice tours USA and Canada as first
at NFT organised by Ken Wlashin and Serpentine Gallery includes Ian filmmaker to use British Council’s
James Lithgow – 7 programmes of most- DECEMBER 1972 LATE 1973 Breakwell, Mike Dunford, David Hall, “Touring Abroad” scheme which pays
ly narrative experimental film Special “Artists’ Films” issue of Art & Deke Dusinberre arrives in London – a Mike Leggett, Will Milne, Lis Rhodes international travel for artists’ – Gidal,
Artists demonstrates increasing attention former student of P. Adams Sitney and and Tony Sinden – at this time, many Leggett, Raban and Welsby also travel to
26 MARCH 1971 to film from the fine arts sector – cover is Annette Michelson, he intends to write visual artists were turning to video USA in ’76 – Peter Gidal begins his pres-
IRAT closed as the building is finally Horror Film 2 by Le Grice – contains his Master of Philosophy thesis on entation at Museum of Modern Art in
reclaimed by Camden Council – Curtis articles by or about, David Dye, Simon Structural Film at the University of JUNE 1975
New York with the statement “I hate
withdraws from Co-op organisation Field, Peter Gidal, Malcolm Le Grice and London but changes his focus to the Peter Sainsbury meets with Co-op execu-
everything about America, and every-
Annabel Nicolson LFMC and English avant-garde – after tive committee to discuss application –
thing that America stands for.”
APRIL-AUGUST 1971 completing his thesis at the Slade, suggests restructuring Co-op by employ-
Curtis and Field present 3 seasons titled 6 DECEMBER 1972 Dusinberre becomes very involved in Co- ing paid workers – amount of original SPRING 1976
“Developments of the New Cinema” at Inspired by Art & Artists feature, William op organisation in 1976 request doubled and re-submitted
David Hall proposes the formation of
NFT – 22 screenings of mostly interna- Raban sends an open letter to British 8 JULY 1975 London Video Arts (later to become
tional work includes Dwoskin / Gidal institutions and arts centres to attract 1974 Meeting at Camden Town Hall organised London Electronic Arts) as an organisa-
programme and special evening of 2 Police raids on Co-op building and by Malcolm Le Grice includes represen-
bookings, which leads to two more events
shows devoted to “Double Projection William Raban’s home under the tatives from LFMC, Camden Council, tion run by and for video artists and the
Films from English Filmmakers", which at Gallery House and a Filmaktion week Prevention of Terrorism Act, apparently Greater London Arts Association, distribution and exhibition of their work –
were printed and processed at the Co-op at Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (June looking for evidence of political activism Gulbenkian Foundation, Space Studios other founder members include David
’73) – thus begins a period which sees the and links to the I.R.A. and BFI – Camden Council suggest tem- Critchley, Tamara Krikorian, Stuart
Co-op reaching out beyond their own porary 12 month relocation to former
MAY 1971 Piano Factory at 44a Fitzroy Road and Marshall, Steve Partridge.
“British Cinema 4: Independent Movie facility New LFMC distribution catalogue (A5, Co-op accept the offer later that month –
Makers” at NFT includes a programme of
blue cover, white lettering) lists over 500 building again needs considerable reno- MAY 1976
films by Gidal and Mare’s Tail by 21-30 DECEMBER 1972 vation before it can be occupied Le Grice lectures on “Materiality in
Larcher “A Small Festival of Events and Films” at films and for the first time includes sepa- avant-garde film” at State University of
JUNE 1971 Gallery House including expanded work rate listings for expanded cinema per- AUGUST 1975
New York, Buffalo, at invitation of Hollis
BFI offer Curtis £75 for 3 weeks work to from Le Grice, McCall and Schneemann BFI award Co-op first significant grant
formances Frampton and Paul Sharits
towards running costs
 8 SHOOT SHOOT SHOOT
LOCATING THE LFMC
THE FIRST DECADE IN CONTEXT
A.L. REES
Before the London Filmmaker’s Co-oper-
ative was founded, only a few inspired
individuals such as Margaret Tait, John
Latham and Jeff Keen made experimental
16mm films in the UK during the early
1960s. Filmmaking was costly and time-
consuming, and had little status as a seri-
ous art form. With limited technical
means, these artists created their own
kinds of lyric cinema, hand-painting the
film as well as shooting live action. Their
films were sadly little known at the time,
when even Anthony Balch’s films made
in collaboration with William Burroughs
had few outlets beyond the London art-
house cinemas run by Balch himself. By
the mid 1960s, however, interest in
underground film grew across the counter
culture. News of the US and European
avant-gardes filtered through the under-
ground press and the colour supplements,
and film clubs began to show some of the
films themselves.
The LFMC was begun by a small group
of such enthusiasts who screened films at
an avant-garde book shop in Charing
Cross Road in 1965-66. Shortly after-
wards, augmented by David Curtis’ pro-
grammes of experimental film at the
Drury Lane Arts Lab, it attracted more
filmmakers and began to live up to its
name. Stephen Dwoskin and Peter Gidal
brought from New York an authentic
whiff of Andy Warhol’s Factory. Others,
like Malcolm Le Grice, used found
footage and raw projection as an exten-
sion of painting and sculpture. In 1968-69
the filmmakers were in control of the
LFMC and more films were being made.
When it moved north to Robert Street, on
the fringe of Camden Town, in 1969, the
LFMC was just one among a cluster of
radical arts groups housed by the New
Arts Lab, but it was already developing
its own ethos as well as the facilities to
shoot, process and edit films.
With the closure of the Arts Labs, the
LFMC split off on its own. It moved suc-
cessively through a series of former
industrial spaces: ‘the Dairy’, ‘the Piano
Factory’ and finally ‘the Laundry’, its
home in Gloucester Avenue for twenty
years. In the crucial years of 1971-75, it
occupied austere studios in Prince of
Wales Crescent. Each location stamped
its shape on the films that were made
there, from the meltdown of media in the
‘expanded cinema’ of the two Arts Labs,
to a more purist climate at Fitzroy Road.
En route, the LFMC effectively invented
a new avant-garde genre, the British
Structural / Materialist film. Its tough and
demanding screening programme often
featured the latest work, straight from the
workshop.
DISTINGUISHED
LFMC films looked strikingly hand-
made. Many films of the early seventies
carry distinct traces of their own printing
and processing, as in the sparkly film sur-
face that mirrors the watery image of
Mike Dunford’s Silver Surfer. Annabel
Nicolson pulled the film through the
printer to make the colour tapestry of
Slides, while successive reprinting of the
film leader numerals in Guy Sherwin’s At
The Academy creates the illusion of bas-
relief depth on the flat film surface. Le
Grice emerged as a master-printer whose
rich overlays of colour primaries for
Threshold and Berlin Horse were similar
to the loops used in his live-action three-
projector performance in Horror Film.
The notion of the direct print survived in
later professional lab-printed work by Le
Grice and others, and in the images of
some who never or rarely used the LFMC
workshop, including such different artists
as David Larcher, Stephen Dwoskin and
Chris Welsby. Larcher’s dissolute, ripe
and wandering colour, Dwoskin’s photo-
genically crisp tones and Welsby’s insis-
tently unmanipulated print, struck direct
from the negative, all attest in distinct
ways to the primacy of process in the
LFMC.
These features distinguished the British
avant-garde film from its American pro-
genitors, whose films were rarely seen
until the American critic P. Adams Sitney
toured England with his New American
Cinema Exposition in Spring 1968. Six
months later, those same films returned to
England when Carla Liss took up her post
as the LFMC’s first paid employee. With
the American work now available in
Britain, Liss was able to establish LFMC
distribution as a more sustainable opera-
tion. Temperamentally, however, the
LFMC felt closer to the similarly materi-
al-based experimentation in Germany,
Austria and Poland. By contrast, the
American underground, from Kenneth
Anger through Maya Deren and Stan
Brakhage, had favoured the personal film
of inner consciousness, or ‘psychodra-
ma’. Warhol turned the genre on its head,
replacing the subjective dream with the
‘fixed stare’ of the camera-eye.
Subsequent films by Paul Sharits,
Michael Snow, Hollis Frampton, Ken
Jacobs and George Landow created a new
‘structural’ avant-garde that had an endur-
ing influence on international filmmak-
ers.
The New American Cinema had powerful
advocates, including Sitney and Annette
Michelson. In their persuasive and
informed essays, the medium of experi-
mental film was also a model of mind.
For Michelson, the avant-garde captured
new forms of appearance and awareness
in a radically phenomenological cinema,
as exemplified in the self-referential films
of Michael Snow. The title of Sitney’s
magisterial book “Visionary Film” also
stresses the American avant-garde’s sub-
jective moment and its capacity to evoke
ideas. By contrast, the British avant-garde
was empirical rather than metaphysical.
Here, a film was not so much an illusion
in the mind of the spectator, as a con-
struction and projection thrown as an
image on a screen.
This conviction emerged directly from
the art school background of most of the
LFMC filmmakers. Few of them were
interested in feature films and they had no
ambitions to enter the film or television
industries. Film for them was primarily
an art medium. Filmmaking had a series
of acts or stages, each of which implied a
new range of strategies, from shooting to
printing and projecting. These could be
LONDON FILM-MAKERS’ BRITISH ARTISTS’ FILM & VIDEO
CO-OPERATIVE STUDY COLLECTION AT
CENTRAL SAINT MARTINS
CONSTITUTION, 1976 COLLEGE OF
ART AND DESIGN
I. Principles
A. The London Film-Makers’ Co- This new resource for scholars and curators is
operative (hereafter referred to as the Co-op) is funded by the Arts & Humanities Research
a voluntary organisation of film-makers dedi-
Board, and is part of the Centre for British
cated to the production, distribution, and
Film and Television Studies, directed by
screening of independent, non-commercial
Professor Laura Mulvey of Birkbeck. The col-
films. The Co-op encourages the growth of a
dynamic independent film culture in Great lection has two forms; a physical collection of
Britain. The Co-op is a non-profit organisation; tapes, still images and paper documentation,
any surplus income shall be reinvested in Co- and an on-line database giving details of over
op activities and shall not be distributed among 4,000 works by British artists1920-2000.
its members.
The collection at Central St Martins holds over
II. Membership 600 VHS tapes – containing over 1,500 indi-
A. Membership in the Co-op is open vidual works. These include the Arts Council
to any interested individual upon receipt of a of England’s reference collection of work it
film for the library. Anyone becomes a member funded, exhibition compilations from the Film
of the Co-op and is entitled to use the Co-op’s
& Video Umbrella, the former LEA and other
production/workshop facilities subject to
organisations, off-air recordings and tapes
approval by the Committee or its delegate (sec-
donated by individual artists. The paper docu-
tion III), upon payment of £5 per annum.
B. Cinema screenings are open to mentation includes over 500 artist files (writ-
Co-op members and the public, upon payment ings by and about the artist) and collections of
of a fee of £1 per annum. fliers and programme notes, film stills and
C. General Meetings of the member- posters. The research team is: Professor
ship shall be held at least twice per year; UK Malcolm Le Grice / David Curtis / Michael
members shall be given at least 14 days notice Mazière / Steven Ball.
of General Meetings by the Secretary.
Extraordinary Meetings may be called by the The database of artists and works will be
Committee on the basis of a request by 3 mem- online at www.pads.ahds.ac.uk from June
bers to the Committee. 25 members, or 30 of
2002. To book study time contact
the London-based membership, constitutes a
d.curtis@csm.linst.ac.uk Further information
quorum for a General or Extraordinary
from the CSM site
Meeting.
D. The membership is responsible www.research.linst.ac.uk/filmcentre/
for Co-op policy and may amend articles in
British Artists’ Film & Video Study Collection,
sections II, III, IV by a 2/3 majority; with the
exception of membership fees, which may be Room 203, Central Saint Martins College of
altered by a simple majority. Art and Design, Southampton Row, London
E. The Co-op shall be dissolved only WC1B 4AP
by a 9/10 majority at an Extraordinary Meeting Tel +44 (0)20 7514 8159
called for that purpose. Any assets at the time Fax +44 (0)20 7514 7071
of dissolution shall be devoted to projects with
goals similar to those of the Co-op (section I).
At such meetings, only foreign members can LUX
have a postal vote.
LUX is a new organisation formed to continue
the work of its predecessors; The London
III. Administration
Filmmakers Co-op, London Electronic
A. Co-op policy and programmes
Arts/London Video Access and The Lux
shall be administered by a Committee account-
Centre.
able to the membership at General and
Extraordinary meetings. Based around a unique collection of artists’ film
B. The Committee shall be elected and video work LUX seeks to promote and sup-
annually from the membership; it shall consist port contemporary and historical artists’ mov-
Top: Filmaktion group at Gallery House, 1973. Bottom left: Postcard from David Curtis to Peter Gidal, 1968. Bottom right: Peter Gidal, 1967. of at least five members, including a ing image work as well as the artists that make
Chairperson, a Treasurer, and a Secretary. it through distribution, exhibition, publishing
General membership only can appoint and dis- and research.
combined to make a film or separated to “making films with projectors”. This was from the same art college and concept art (founded 1973) and the Film Work Group miss staff. For more details contact:
make an event. in the spirit of the Arts Labs, which host- background as the LFMC. After almost a (founded 1974). These and other factions C. The Committee shall oversee the LUX, 3rd Floor, 18 Shacklewell Lane,
ed the LFMC until 1971, and where all decade of process-led films, the image also met and tangled at the RCA Film daily operation of the production/workshop London E8 2EZ, UK
There was no real equivalent to the psy- the art forms mingled promiscuously. was back. In some ways this extended the School, where Gidal and Dwoskin both facilities, the distribution library, and the tel: +44 (0)207 503 3980,
fax: +44 (0)7092 111413
chodrama at the LFMC. Psychodrama When film went off on its own it lost field of what Le Grice and Gidal had taught from 1973, along with theorists screening programme.
e m a i l : i n f o @ l u x . o r g . u k
was a literary model and by contrast the much of that interaction, even as it devel- called ‘structural-materialism’ in the Noel Burch and Jorge Dana. Different D. The Treasurer shall present an
web: www.lux.org.uk
LFMC sprang directly from the visual oped a new independent ethos and pro- early 1970s. Gidal coined this distinctive versions of film semiotics, experimenta- audited statement of all Co-op accounts to a
arts. The few exceptions are more playful duced, for the first time, a distinct group term for the direction taken by British tion and politics were hammered out. General meeting not less than once per year.
E. Minutes of all Committee meet- SHOOT SHOOT SHOOT
than traumatic, and include Bruce of LFMC filmmakers. filmmakers towards a politics of vision, Gidal’s citation of Brecht ‘against repre-
Lacey’s ‘family’ films and the childlike or of film as a critique of optical sensa- sentation’ was countered by the Brechtian ings shall be available from the Co-op offices
Curator: Mark Webber
humour of the films and performances of This new direction appeared in 1973 as tion. But these two leading and gifted ‘alienation effect’ in the drama films of to any member upon request.
Lux: Benjamin Cook, Mike Sperlinger, Jam
Jeff Keen. After the short, intense lyri- ‘Filmaktion’, but was seeded three years filmmakers were in some ways also Straub-Huillet. Both were critical of Tidy
cism of Alone and Moment, Stephen earlier by tutor Malcolm Le Grice at St pulling in different directions. Le Grice ‘visual pleasure’ in the conventional IV. Regulations
Dwoskin turned to extended portraits Martins School of Art, where his students eventually embraced Frampton’s ‘spectre sense, but where Gidal turned to frag- A. All members complying with sec- Project Management: Lucy Reynolds
with a documentary touch. David included William Raban, Gill Eatherley, of narrative’, and his vision has always mentation and enigma, the political tion II A shall have access to the produc- Project Assistants: Travis Miles, Milena
Larcher’s films are documentary-diaries Annabel Nicolson and Marilyn Halford. been of the expansive sort. Gidal’s mod- groups adopted the long-take and spoken tion/workshop facilities as administered by the Michalski-Gow
Committee, or its delegate(s). Technical Consultant: David Leister
or personal travelogues, loosely struc- Around these circulated others from the ernism was of the other kind: paring text to disengage the viewer from the film
tured and of long duration. Such tactics London art schools, such as John Du down and minimalizing the image, so that spectacle. B. Films in the Co-op library shall Projection: Chloë Stewart, Greg Pope
be made available for rental at rates deter- Website: Gregory Kurcewicz
disrupt, even as they elicit, the spectator’s Cane, Chris Welsby, Jenny Okun and each frame resists the lure of unity and
identification with the lure of the screen Anne Rees-Mogg. The purist, if not puri- possession. His films are a running cri- VISUAL mined by the film-maker; all prints shall be Design: Rachel Reupke
provided by the film-maker, who retains com-
image. Peter Gidal, more extremely, tan, elements in the structural avant-garde tique of their own viewing conditions, Advisory Panel:
The more visual and celebratory side of plete ownership of the print. Films may be
rejected psychodrama along with all cin- were not their only feature, as time now and internalise their pictorial codes, just David Curtis, Senior Research Fellow, Central
the LFMC, including Le Grice’s lyrical withdrawn from the library at any time, subject
ema which denies its own illusionism. shows. Seen today, their strict forms also as his mentor Samuel Beckett made loops Saint Martin’s School of Art
colour films, eventually had an effect on to prior booking arrangements made through
have more playful ingredients. The ‘room of words and speeches to sideline the Michael O’Pray, Reader in Film, University of
the commercial world, which most of its the Co-op.
PLASTIC films’ of the time are revealing and mov- power of language to refer. East London
members would have rejected had they C. Film-makers shall receive 70% of
The next generation (which included ing documents of typically spartan known of it. This was its impact, both all rental fees on each of their films; the Co-op
A.L. Rees, Senior Research Fellow, Royal
William Raban, Chris Welsby and domestic space. They include John Du In the art school tradition of the LFMC
direct and oblique, on TV advertising and shall retain 30% of rental fees to cover distri-
College of Art
Annabel Nicolson) came straight to film Cane’s Zoom Lapse, in which a window filmmakers, language as such was treated
rock videos, whose language of rapid cut- bution costs. Payments will be made to film-
Simon Field, Director, International Film
making from the art school studio. The art and kitchen table are densely superim- warily. Dialogue and voice-over were
ting is largely imitated from the avant- makers on a semi-annual basis, unless other-
Festival Rotterdam
schools were in a state of flux as waves of posed until they white-out; the deep associated with mainstream drama and
garde, up to the present day. David wise requested.
Chrissie Iles, Film and Video Curator, Whitney
new art hit them throughout the 1960’s, colour of John Smith’s Leading Light; documentary. They rarely appeared until
Sylvester was one of the rare art critics D. The Committee shall endeavour
Museum of American Art
from abstract expressionism to Pop. At and the glimpses of dailiness in 2
David late in the 1970s, notably in Lis Rhodes’
who saw (and approved) this way of to keep distribution lists up to date through
the same time they kept up a studio tradi- Hall’s metrical Phased Time . Peter invocation of a ‘woman’s voice’ in Light
Arts Council of England: Gary Thomas
spreading the modernist message. For tel- supplements or re-issue of the distribution cat-
tion which went back to William Morris Gidal’s Hall is a canny example, drawing Reading, (1979). Sound was disrupted
British Council: Paul Howson and Satwant
evision, plagiarism is necessary. alogue.
and the Arts and Crafts movement of the the viewer by selective framing to iconic and looped by Le Grice in Castle One and
Gill
Similarly, LFMC expanded cinema long
nineteenth century. This regime encour- photo pin-ups (Godard, the Rolling Reign of the Vampire, but much of the
BFI: Heather Stewart
precedes the current enthusiasm for
aged ‘hands-on’ direct experience and a Stones) and to simulacra for the film work made at the LFMC was characteris-
Esmée Fairbairn Foundation: David Littler
installation and projection art, but is LETTERS
respect for materials. As older art forms itself as a projected sound-image event (a tically visual and often silent. Anthony
AHRB British Artists’ Film & Video Study
rarely acknowledged. In part, this is due
lost their appeal, under the impact of the desklamp, an intermittent door bell). McCall and Annabel Nicolson explored
Centre: David Curtis
to a split between filmmakers and other Dear Sir
mass media, some younger artists turned primary projection, Marilyn Halford and
artists which still persists. The LFMC New prints and film restoration/preservation:
to film, video, sound and photography, Marilyn Halford, in such films as Guy Sherwin combined projection with
itself had only the loosest alliance with I am a basket stacker at the Basingstoke NFTVA / BFI Donor Access: Shona Barratt
which were largely free of high art asso- Footsteps (a cat and mouse game with the performance, Ian Kerr and Lis Rhodes
video makers and other media artists. Co-operative Supermarket. Four times a year, Soho Images: Len Thornton, Ray Slater
ciations, and modernist in their imperson- camera as pursuer) and Gill Eatherley’s made films in live projection by drawing
Consequently, London Video Arts (later one of my duties is to collect the un-opened Creative Film Services: Terry MacCallam
al technology. Each was treated like any light-play in Hand Grenade, also shared and scraping on them as they passed
London Electronic Arts) was founded in copies of SIGHT AND SOUND from all the
studio material, in the artisanal manner. some of Annabel Nicolson’s unique through the lens. Most elaborate were
1976 as a separate group. Video had been other sales girls. We send these to under-devel- Thanks to all the filmmakers and other people
Film, for example, could be hand-printed, insights into transience. Their insistence Welsby’s gallery installations for multi-
profiled at the Serpentine Gallery in oped countries for use as toilet tissue (although who lived through all this and shared their
stained, used as sculpture, or looped. It on the fragility of the image was differ- screen seascape films with text, charts
1975, and then at the Tate in 1976. It was the paper is not really absorbent enough, it memories and collections with us.
was literally a ‘plastic medium’, in the ently developed by the 3 and 4 screen and documents of the location. Ron
already developing distinct concerns of does help to ease our consciences a little).
jargon of the Bauhaus, as well as a films of Le Grice, Raban and others, in Haselden also created large-scale gallery We are extremely grateful to Christophe
its own, from real-time viewing to televi- This quarter there was not a single copy
recording device. For this generation, led which the projectors are moved and over- works with looped projection and con- Bichon & Loic Diaz-Ronda (Lightcone), Deke
sion ‘interventions’ and gallery space. left in the box on delivery day. I only under-
by Le Grice, the physical and as yet unex- lapped in the screening, or in which the trasts between still and moving images. Dusinberre, William Fowler, James
filmmaker interacts with the movie. The Festival of Expanded Cinema at the stood why when Polly Griddle (on check-out)
plored aspects of film were as important Twenty years later, the LFMC and LEA Grauerholz & WSB Communications, Ron
Nicolson read by flickering match-light ICA in 1976 revealed a whole new gener- ran up to me excitedly with her little virgin
as its ability to make a representational finally merged in the Lux Centre. The Haselden, Lisa Le Feuvre, Barry Miles, Karen
(Precarious Vision). Le Grice created ation that included Steve Farrer, Bob pages bared for the first time in many years:
image. Lux closed after five years in 2001, but Mirza, Peter Mudie, Laura Mulvey, MM Serra
colour-layers by moving his arms and Fearns, Chris Garratt, Rob Gawthrop, “They have something about real films this
the film collection and key workshop (New York Film-Makers’ Cooperative), John
body in front of three projector beams Nicky Hamlyn and many more. time,” she said.
The aim was not just formal. By chal- facilities remain open as a holding opera- Wyver.
(Horror Film), Raban measured screen Of course I did not believe her at first, but there
lenging the ways in which film represen- tion. In this sense, with several hundred
space by pacing out the film as it was pro- IMPULSE it was, an article (four full pages) on the We appreciate the continued support of the fol-
tation appears, the viewer is made aware members as well as an extensive distribu-
jected (Take Measure), Welsby construct- Independent Avant-Garde Festival by Tony lowing: Sophie Howarth, Andrew Brighton,
of the process by which the image is A similar impulse to direct making lay tion archive of classic and new work, the
ed large scale installations of projectors Rainbow. Yes! even written by someone who William Rallison, Jon Lewis (Tate Modern)
coded. The visual illusion is transformed behind the ‘expanded’ use of media in the LFMC has not yet vanished. Its history
in horizontal format (i.e. on their sides), knows about it. You can imagine the ecstasy Yann Beauvais (Scratch Projections) Anne
into an experience of time. New struc- early LFMC. The Bolex camera, which was made up of such crises. Commenting
to show panoramic shots of the sea (Shore that filled our shop for at least an hour or two. Demy-Geroe (BIFF) Fabienne Nicholas
tures explore and question the passive had been developed as a relatively light- on the period of the structural film in the
Line). However we mellowed a little when we (Experimenta) Margaret Samai (FTIWA)
role of the cinema spectator, and look to a weight news gathering instrument, was a early 1970’s, David Curtis wrote, “for me realised what depravation would be caused in Vivienne Gaskin (CCA) Stefanie Schult-
participatory rather than semi-hypnotic versatile vision machine. Its engineering its rigour is inextricable from the physical
EXTREME South America if SIGHT AND SOUND were Strathaus (FDK) Claes Karlsson (Kulturhuset)
state of viewing. Each of these goals produced a new kind of cinema as film- deprivation of the Prince of Wales to make a habit of paying attention to this kind Peter Pakesch (Kunsthalle Basel) Núria
brought the film avant-garde close to the At one extreme, Welsby edited wholly ‘in makers adapted its technology to their Crescent building”. At an all time finan- of cinema. Enguita & Núria Homs (Fundaçio Antoní
growing conceptual art movement in the camera’, using time-lapse and predeter- own devices. Springwound action, turret cial low, he adds, the LFMC was only
Tapies) Juan Guardiola (Artium) Carlos
late sixties and early seventies, charac- mined structure to reveal landscape as lenses and variable focus, rewind, over- held together by Gidal’s and Le Grice’s Yours faithfully,
Adriano (Babushka) Ruben Guzman (Museo
terised by “lists, grids, catalogues, count- form and light. Le Grice similarly re- laps, timed dissolves, autoaction, remov- “will to survive”. It was under these con-
Nacional de Bellas Arte) Jim Sinclair
ing games and random procedures” views landscape in such films as ing the lens, swinging the camera in the ditions that genuinely new ideas emerged. MARY LOU GRACE
(Vancouver Cinematheque) Alex MacKenzie
(Peter Wollen). These ideas, at the mar- Whitchurch Down (Duration), but in a air and single framing appeared in many
(Blinding Light) Steve Anker (SF
gin of the arts, were an alternative to offi- more intuitive and colourist way. Raban films. Such options for film vision, set From LFMC experimentation sprang a
Cinematheque) Kathy Geritz (PFA) Benjamin
cial culture, cinema language and its and Halford were turning to the urban free from the human-centred eye, were kind of filmmaking which was related to
TEN YEARS OF BRITISH Weil & Nathalie Dubuc (SFMoMA) Mark
power to manipulate the audience. In an scene in such films as Time Stepping, taken up by LFMC filmmakers in films but finally distinct from the contemporary
AVANT-GARDE FILM Rance (Film Forum) Abina Manning (Video
early film, Castle One, Le Grice used which alternates different axial views of like Lensless, Zoom Lapse, Knee High, films of Gilbert and George, Gordon
Data Bank) John Mhiripiri & Jonas Mekas
found footage of industrial labour and of an East London street, while East London Clockwise (Accept No Substitute), Matta-Clark and Marcel Broodthaers, to
A DOCUMENTARY (Anthology Film Archives) Vicki Lewis &
politicians to show that film is a social itself was to become prime subject matter Shepherd’s Bush, River Yar, Colour take a random sample of artists. In their
Sune Nordgren (Baltic) Linda Pariser
object or construct. No image is neutral, for another filmmaker, John Smith. From Separation, Focus and Room Film. The cases, film extended or documented their
Taking its cue from the 2002 retrospec- (Cornerhouse) Caroline Collier & Michael
in this view. A flashing light bulb in front David Crosswaite’s Choke, a two-screen literalness of these titles is striking. They practice in other media, as it still does for
tive programme of British avant-garde Prior (Arnolfini) Josephine Lanyon (Picture
of the screen also means that “the aware- film of Piccadilly Circus with rock name the process by which the film was artists from Bruce Nauman to Tacita
film 1966-1976, SHOOT SHOOT This) Ikeda Hiroyuki (Image Forum) Tom
ness of the audience is returned to the soundtrack, to Paul Botham’s Eiffel made, or the location where it was shot. Dean. The LFMC - in the spirit of Deren
SHOOT relates the story of the first Birchenhough (British Council)
actual situation (watching a film) by ref- Trifle, the urban scene was part of the The content of the film can be deduced and Brakhage as it happens - was com-
erence to the bulb and the perceptual LFMC’s image bank, although the con- from its self-descriptive title, an idea also mitted to film as an independent art form. decade of the London Film-makers’ Co-
Interview tapes transcribed by Diane Beddoes,
problem which its flashing creates” stant appeal of landscape was also a hall- found in modernist painting and music. The conditions of making and projecting op. Key participants in the closely inter-
Helen Eger, William Fowler, Rebecca Gamble,
(Malcolm Le Grice). mark. Here, the LFMC filmmakers linked the film were taken to be internal aspects twined stories of the Co-op and British
Darren Green, Gregory Kurcewicz, Roz
back to the story of British art and to its The films made at the LFMC were not the of the art form, to be investigated as its experimental film in these years reflect
Leach, Milena Michalski, Travis Miles, Lupe
Some of these and other deconstructive fusion of the empirical gaze with the new whole story. It took part in international major content. Here it led film way on the successes (and failures) of a radi-
Nuñez-Fernandez, Heike Seidler, Jo Shaw,
ideas entered the LFMC orbit from con- scientific meteorology in the nineteenth festivals in London (1970 and 1973) and beyond its key aspects as a document or a cal project to imagine a new kind of cin-
Mike Sperlinger, Denise Webber, Mark
cept art. This diverse movement included century. Just as in that earlier meeting of abroad, while Peter Gidal and John Du record, let alone a narrative. The LFMC ema: new ways of distributing work, new
Webber, Cassie Yukawa
many artists who made films, notably Ian Constable’s eye with scientific topogra- Cane publicised the LFMC and related had little interest in the mainstream cine- forms of exhibition and, crucially, new
Breakwell, David Dye and Tony Sinden. phy, so in the 1970’s a painterly under- National Film Theatre screenings from ma, except perhaps to oppose it. Most of kinds of images and sounds. Participants Shoot Shoot Shoot is a Lux project
Most were born in the early 1940’s, and standing of light and form met up with 1972-75 with regular reviews in Time its films descend in a straight line from include Stephen Dwoskin, David Dye, www.lux.org.uk
were part of a generation that also includ- the mechanical apparatus of camera and Out. From the middle to late seventies the Lumière and Méliès, bypassing the narra- Gill Eatherley, Peter Gidal, Malcolm Le Shoot Shoot Shoot website and online research
ed Le Grice, David Curtis, Derek Jarman printer. The romantic vein in this tradi- LFMC attracted the cautious interest of tive cinema. It opened the gates for all Grice, Annabel Nicolson, William Raban facility at www.lfmc.org
and David Hall (the founder of British tion continues with Larcher’s epic scale Screen, then the leading UK journal of kinds of experimental filmmaking that and Guy Sherwin; the film’s consultant
Shoot Shoot Shoot broadsheet copyright Lux.
video art who was at this time a filmmak- films, which celebrate the same interac- film theory. Gidal and Le Grice were per- explode the classic rules of cinema. This is David Curtis. Clips of many of the key First edition, May 2002.
er and sculptor). For Dwoskin, Gidal and tion of the eye and the machine to expand suasive and sophisticated voices in intel- was far from the intention at the time, but films, performances and installations are
Larcher, film was their major medium, sight. lectual debate and in raising funds from from the mid-1960’s the LFMC was lay- also featured.
while others crossed media barriers into the Arts Council and the British Film ing out the basic map we all still use in
live performance and installation art. On In 1975, the critic Deke Dusinberre posit- Institute. Through the Independent time-based media. New roles were
the south coast, Jeff Keen, Jim Duke and ed a distinct ‘landscape tendency’ in the Filmmakers’ Association, founded in explored for maker, for viewer and for the
SHOOT SHOOT SHOOT is available for
Tony Sinden founded the Acme British avant-garde, and he curated a 1974 as a forum for filmmakers and theo- space - the viewing space, be it cinema orretail or institutional sale or hire from
Generating Co. for expanded cinema and series of screenings at the Tate to prove rists, the LFMC was part of a chain of installation, live performance or film pro-
Louise Machin at Illuminations. Contact
performances in 1967. In 1969-70, Le his point. He connected landscape film to campaigning workshops like the Berwick jection - which stands between them. louise@illumin.co.uk or +44 20 7288
Grice and his students made ‘pre-produc- the art of John Hilliard, Richard Long and Street Collective (founded 1970), Cinema 8409; more details at
tion’ films, or what David Curtis called Hamish Fulton, who had indeed emerged Action (founded 1968), Four Corners © 2002 A.L.Rees. www.illumin.co.uk.