Guy Sherwin: Live Cinema: Retrospective Screenings

Abstract

Curated by Sherwin, this is a series of live film performances in a retrospective programme of multi-projection works, some produced between 2001-2007; others reworked from films made in the seventies. The series addresses questions of moving-image art as performance or ‘live cinema’. What are the possibilities of exhibiting film as live performance? What are the specific analogue qualities of 16mm film that can contribute to a vibrant moving-image aesthetic in a digital era? The work builds on Sherwin’s 35 year history of investigation into the material properties of film, exhibition and interpretation. Informing the practice are the film works of Snow, Conrad, the LFMC, theories of Cognitive Psychology (Arnheim 1974), Structural Film (LeGrice 1975), Phenomenology (Hamlyn 2003). The primary research method is the process of exhibition itself. Films works are adapted to the space, time-allowance, and the wider curatorial context, resulting in unique programmes. The works focus attention on projection-as-event through the interrelationships between projector, screen and projectionists as performers of their instruments.