
Material Desire and Experimental Film: Color and Chemistry
Open To The PublicThird in a series of four programs curated by Kim Knowles that explores artists' material desire for photochemical film in a digitally-dominated world. Manifestations of material desire in the working methods of contemporary filmmakers will be considered on their own and contextualized by their historical parallels. TIME CHANGED TO 8:30

Part of a film series curated by Kim Knowles and presented by the Arts of the Moving Image program
Program
Berlin Horse
(Malcolm Le Grice, 1970, 9 min, UK, Color, 16mm)
This film is largely filmed with an exploration of the film medium in certain aspects. It is also concerned with making certain conceptions about time in a more illusory way than I have been inclined to explore in many other of my films. It attempts to deal with some of the paradoxes of the relationships of the “real” time which exists when the film was being shot, with the “real” time which exists when the film is being screened, and how this can be modulated by technical manipulation of the images and sequences.
Konrad & Kurfurst
(Esther Urlus, 2013-14, 7 min, Netherlands, Color, 16mm)
The home-brewed emulsion is a fragile metaphor for the heroism of Konrad and his horse Kurfurst during the Olympic Games in Berlin, 1936. Falling from his horse, he became a national hero, only to become an anti-hero when overtaken by history. Made by consulting technical publications from early cinema and photographic experiments.
Elli
(Esther Urlus, 2016, 8 min, Netherlands, Color, 16mm)
Elli consists of a seascape shot from the spot that marks the start of World War II in Greece. However, it is mainly a follow-up to filmmaker Esther Urlus’s inquisitive interest in color mixing in film. In this case, the optical mixing created by various flicker effects.
Variations on a Cellophane Wrapper
(David Rimmer, 1970, 9 min, Canada, Color, 16mm)
David Rimmer repurposes a fragment of NFB footage depicting a female factory worker shaking out large sheets of cellophane into something wondrously alchemical and almost otherworldly.
Seoul Electric
(Richard Tuohy, 2010, 14 min, Australia, Color, 16mm)
A North Asian metropolis. Electricity wires draped like thick webs adorn the streetscape. Explosive sparks of color electrify the frame. Filmed in Seoul in black and white. Colorised during processing using colored torch light.
Loretta
(Jeanne Liotta, 2003, 4 min, USA, Color, 16mm)
An abstract moving rayogram in the form of a woman or an aria. Living in time experienced as high drama, dissolving into the infinite. A dialectical manifestation of phenomena in flux, like any other movie.
Push/Pull/Recover
(Terra Long, 2015, 4 min, Canada, Color, 16mm)
A meditation on motion through stillness with breath. Shot in single frames on 16mm and hand painted.
An Empty Threat
(Josh Lewis, 2018, 8 min, USA, Color, 16mm)
Deep black blots created with drops of photographic developer, mirrored in various shapes and sizes, are sequenced into a variety of visual rhythms that add up to a sort of uneasy animation.
About the Curator
Kim Knowles is an academic and curator based in Bristol, UK. She teaches film studies at Aberystwyth University and has programmed the “Black Box” experimental strand of the Edinburgh International Film Festival since 2008.