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200KS, STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY Noam M. Elcott on Peter Gidal and the LFMC gard experiment in versal The works produced at the London Film-Makers’ Co-operative forced a confrontation with media infrastructure, its politics and poetics. authored many monographs dating hack decades—and itcovers more than fry yeas and a startlingly wide range of topics Film theory etst politics, Andy Warhol, Samuel Becker, Thérewe Oulton, and Gerhard Richter loom especialy large discussion of his oven films sarge absent. Flare Out Aesthetics iss that ‘shook of aesthetics. vial connection tothe LEMC— the woe sabjet of Shoot Shoot Shoot remains, fo the most pimp ‘Nevertheless, one central ia ites thee divergent projects andi latent in bot vlumes-—namel in ‘Structural (tous the coy coinage of media theorist John Durham Peters: “Is fascination forthe asi, the boring, the mundane, andallthe mischievous work ‘done behind the scenes. ria datrne of environments and wal diferences, of rut gates and he node fof things not undertod that and under our work, easing concept makes the LEMC seem essential ‘our momen iti this ve “The Co-ops infrastructralis theory was domi rated by two Rimmaker theorists: Le Grice and Gil Astutly aware that avane-garde film eguited erica supporto reach wide public—and acutely cognizant ofthe apathy with which Sree, Arora, another journals generally sympathetic to American stuctral fim greeted FMC fl—the two sought to publicize istorciz, and theorize the work of the Co-op through Gidals weekly previews of LEMC screenings in Time Out, Le Grice’s long-running column fr Studio International esaysin a range of onal, and several book-length sods Le Grice’ inightfl esays were anthologiedin 2001 as Experimental Cinema inthe Digital Age. Gals monographs remain widely aa ale yer underutilized, particularly his 1971 volume on ‘athol the first eat the arti’ paintings and ins om equal terms Flare Out includes writings both essen tal ad tangential tothe Co-ops central mission. (On offeris an overriding politcal aesthetic summed up best in the opening lines of Gals most famous ‘ay, “Theory and Defniton of StructuraVMaterialist Film’ (1975) “Structural Material lm attempts benowillsons." Fr ida, his meant that “he po ‘ces the film's making deals with devices tha resin ‘Semysiaton or attempted demystfction ofthe in proces.” Only he proper Rim infasrctue cold yield Fis that reveal the infant of Rim. According the principal technology of the LFMC was not the camera the printer, othe projector, but rather “the ‘machine’clled the Co-op that apparatus of exper mena fl the ems es pecs)" a6 Gil wrote in ‘later essay. The LFMC understood as machine, app rato, disposi or simply infrastructures what weds these complementary volumes Historically the marsaling ofthe LEMC as an apps ranasentaled the dogma rection of lusonim. And Yetthe limitations and equivocations of ant illo ‘theory consitutone dread that inks the two puis tions specially via the papers delivered by Le Grice, GGidal and Peter Wollen aa seminar held at the LEMC in February 1976 Le Grice’ texts neo the inet in Shoot Shoot Shoot. Gils among the sin Hare (Out (Wallen talk does noc survive The conversation took pace gaint the hackrop of Gals “Theory and Definition of Strctura Materialist il” and Wen’ The Two Avant-Gardes,” both published in Studio Inertial ew months pros Rather than resect, their radial ant llanonis, Gidal and Le Grice cede ‘round 10 Wollens insistence that lasionsm and nar fatve,on the one hand, and abstraction and reflexive (Greenbergian) moderniam, on the other, cannot be ‘opponed aol Le Grice concades hie pape with an open question ato “whether any aspect of illusion ‘or sequential (narrations sracture cam be made com patible withthe anillsionise materialist aestheic Ibich the eater period of my work has blped vo eta Tish almoat tothe level of a dogma Le Grice’ query was largely answered in the late 1970sand 80s, asthe LFMC and other experimental fim groups tired tonarative, Welen won But as we revisit the fist decade of he LFMC and ts strcturall ‘materials ls, whats mosses not the dogmatic ‘ejetion of ilesionien sod marti in favor of marr ‘tyand poces a pontion aseted already ns and ‘mark exhibitions x 1969“ Antllusion: Procedure Materials” atthe Whitey Museum of American Artin New York rather, the works produced a the LEMIC forced a confrontation withthe politics and poeis of ‘medi infrastructures confrontation that sever more tinge needed ‘A final point demands attention. In rone and sb stance many ofthe esays in Fare Ont testify ro Gils “ule” polis polemis hat were widely eid and eventually abandoned by mot LEMC adherents for ‘heir seemingly ineatable dogmatism. And yet many ‘of his arguments seem all roo timely today, What was fnce dismissed 3 paritanical acticin a ds with rudimentary aesthetic pleasure seems sensible nom, ten compulsory, given our ascendant patriarchal pol tis. Consider the opening lines of "Against Sexual Representation in Film” (1984): “The vehement eter ‘mination n patriarchy to reproduce the oppression of ‘women inthe interests of male power exist inal cal practices. The reproduction of male ower in rpre entation voneinntance.” Infamy Gil advected scree, Pethape we consider ourselves too ealightened to brook, othe feminist project too far advanced to warrang, such bunt statements—even nthe months dominated bythe venom of Trump, he vii of Berni Brox, andthe broadcast and social media that enabled both. But Gida’s unfashionably radical feminism eserves more than a second look nthe corencimate of fashionably virlent patriarch. Cleary work the [EMEC began half century ago remains tobe done.)

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