Experimental Film and Video Art
Experimental film has a long and complex history, emerging during the inception of film technologies during the end of the 19th century and growing up in parallel with the more dominant forms of narrative and documentary. Whilst drawing on both these traditions, experimental film-makers and artists also sought to establish their own unique techniques and tropes, firmly rejecting what might be perceived as literary forms, in favour of the poetic and rhythmic potential of the medium as well as exploring the possibilities of abstraction and non-representation and the expression of alternative political ideologies. A survey of the multiple approaches and forms of the genre includes a complex diversity of approaches and themes and features a rigorous experimentation with the formal qualities of the medium, as well as a celebration of the potential of film (and sound) as a fluid and plastic medium with extraordinary expressive and persuasive emotional power.
Video art emerged much later, towards the middle of the twentieth century, initially as a direct response to television as a ubiquitous and dominant influence on the domestic landscape. Early work in the genre by artists centred on the rejection of conventional broadcast television and included efforts to create radical alternatives to the one-way diffusion of information and propaganda by governments and large corporations. During the 1970‘s and 80‘s, as television technology developed to include methods for the recording and editing of the video signal, artists and media activists took up the increasingly accessible and affordable equipment to explore the capabilities and potential of this electronic medium beyond the broadcast domain to alternative venues, including galleries and museums. As video technologies and techniques improved to approach the flexibility and capabilities of film- especially once it became possible to process the video image digitally, the two forms have increasingly merged, sharing approaches and cross- fertilising two formerly distinct but related genres into what for many is now perhaps more accurately characterised as time based-media. Chris Meigh-Andrews, May 2020
Programme 11: Experimental Film
Chris Meigh-Andrews, considered by many to be a pioneer in the development of video art and digital moving image in the UK and for his renewable energy installations, began exhibiting his work internationally in the late 1970’s. He has written extensively on the history and context of artists’ video. His book, A History of Video Art, Berg, (Oxford & New York, 2006), in Japanese by Sangensha, (Tokyo, 2013) provides an overview of the development of artists' video since its inception. An enlarged and expanded edition of the book was published by Bloomsbury, (London and New York, 2013) and in Mandarin by China Pictorial Publishing, (Beijing, 2018).
We invited Chris to put together a selection of works that explore some of the ideas around experimentation and development of the moving image.
Artists included in this selection: Andrew Demirjian (USA), Robert Cahen (France), Narsica Hirsch (Argentina) and Ruben Guzman (Argentina) Tessa Garland (UK), Masayuki Kwai (Japan), Vince Briffa (Malta), Madelon Hooykaas (Netherlands), Jacques Perconte (France), Stuart Moore & Kayla Parker (UK), Visual Brains (Sei Kazama & Ohtsue Hatsune) (Japan), Terry Flaxton (UK).