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.)