Imperfect Cinema: Making Futures?

Abstract

‘In the realm of artistic life, there are more spectators now than at any other moment in history. This is the first stage in the abolition of "elites." The task currently at hand is to find out if the conditions which will enable spectators to transform themselves into agents — not merely more active spectators, but genuine co-authors — are beginning to exist. The task at hand is to ask ourselves whether art is really an activity restricted to specialists, whether it is, through extra-human design, the option of a chosen few or a possibility for everyone.’ Julio Garcia Espinsosa. Jacques Ranciere has noted a primary political concern is the lack of recognition by those dominated in society. He considers the responsibility of one who has an influence is not to talk on behalf of the masses, but rather to use their privileged position to facilitate the self-expression of new voices by opening up potential for new dialogues and the sharing of knowledge. The central political act of Imperfect Cinema is aesthetic, in that it produces a rearrangement of a social order, where new voices and bodies previously unseen can be heard in a participatory context outside of the academicised-avant-garde and capitalist-consumerist mainstreams of film culture. Imperfect Cinema’s aim is to create a democratic and sustainable underground Cinema with the central aim of providing a venue for participatory activity outside of the aforementioned enclaves of contemporary film culture. Far more than just academic research, our aim is to create a dialectic venue for participatory activity in which the problems of both exclusivity and sustainability in mainstream film culture can be explored and discussed. As Dr Duncan Reekie of The Exploding Cinema has observed, the experimental & short-form film has for too long been the preserve of an academicised elite, or alternatively viewed as the juvenile ‘stepping stone’ to the mature feature film, a more easily commercially exploitable commodity. This is an incredibly revealing observation as it draws attention not only to the abundant inequalities & enclaves existent within these mainstreams of contemporary film culture, but also to a value system which hierarchically positions short-form as ‘less than.’ Our aim is to find new means of exploring and articulating these problems, by bringing together a tactile network of film activists, and by adopting trans-disciplinarity as a means of critically reframing the experimental &  short form film. Of course, issues of sustainability have arguably become part of the zeitgeist, but this issue is not only economic and environmental, it is also social. Positioning practice, criticality and form in a hierarchy which is potentially inaccessible to most does not bode well for the either the sustainability of our art form, or for its chances of discovering new territories of thought and practice. Added to these concerns is an imaging industry which has become reliant on obsolescence, where the functional life of technology is far greater than its operational use. Just think how many television sets you have been told represent the latest in the televisual home viewing experience in the past decade alone. Where do they go when the new one arrives? For the film artist the concern is also one of paints and brushes. Sometimes we paint with Ektachrome and a Nizo brush, sometimes with an Alexa & binary. In the age of obsolescence, the work of the film artist is problematised by technological redundancy, we are in danger of losing our brushes and paints as the detritus of this economic model. This provides us with a unique opportunity to become activists; to activate a dialogue through practice where the very use of that which has been cast aside by the new, might find new life and new context. For Imperfect Cinema the act of making is both a political and necessarily dialectic act, with which we can explore, confront, concur or criticize these and other issues existent in film culture and beyond. Our paper will be contextualised by our hosting of an imperfect cinema event within the Making Futures conference, where we hope through participation new dialogues may be formed between our respective craft areas.