#expandedcinema

If you are in Barcelona, Vienna, Plymouth, London, Frome or Newcastle in the next weeks, come check out Alex MacKenzie’s EXPERIMENTS FOR A SINGLE PROJECTOR, as he tours this live expanded cinema show to a few select stops in Europe (see below for dates and locations) and presents workshops along the way.

Exploring the potential of the 16mm film projection apparatus and amplifying the possibilities of this refined and precise tool, EXPERIMENTS FOR A SINGLE PROJECTOR is a suite of expanded and performed works that use the mechanism to its fullest potential; manipulating, modifying and enhancing various aspects of its functionality. Found footage, painted filmstrips and light are transformed with beam interference, bipacked looping, focus, lens and shutter alterations to create radically transformed and dreamlike spaces—epic, immersive, and abstracted. The results shimmer across the screen, uniting “the cosmic with the microscopic...in an ecstatic splendour of light” (Marilyn Brakhage). 

“Alex MacKenzie is the unequivocal master of contemporary Canadian expanded cinema: using rare and outdated technology with the deft touch of a visual alchemist, MacKenzie spins his stunning and mesmerizing anti-narratives using the detritus of cinematic history to create a completely unforgettable, and undeniably powerful, alternate vision.”  -Antimatter Media Art

“MacKenzie is a key player in the revival of expanded cinema forms, having performed an array of super 8 and 16mm projection works over the last twenty-five years. His projects stretch the possibilities of the analogue form, manipulating images to beyond our received expectations.” -Chris Kennedy, Early Monthly Film Segments (Toronto) 

Experiments for a Single Projector DATES AND LOCATIONS:

YOUR EYES ARE SPECTRAL MACHINES > LUIS MAĆIAS IN PERSON <

Iris Film Collective, in collaboration with ECUAD and Cineworks,  are very excited to have Barcelona-based filmmaker Luis Maćias presenting his work in person for the very first time in Vancouver, at the Integrated Motion Studio, Emily Carr University of Art & Design, Tuesday May 23 2023 at 7:30pm.

Your Eyes Are Spectral Machines investigates the concept of what Luis calls spectral cinema. Exploring the various components of the film spectrum—process and structure, photochemical transformation, optical/contact printing, and projection as event, Your Eyes Are Spectral Machines is about the exploration, manipulation and variation of an image and its absence. Be prepared for deep optical immersion and arresting materiality.

The Program



The eyes empty and the pupils burning of rage and desire 2 x 16mm projectors | 25 min | Silent | colour-b&w An absence of image becomes its own destruction, building an unreproduceable organic universe that slowly emerges from a deep connection between emulsion and projector. Without image. Without sound. Without description.

The Kiss 35mm ( screening digitally) | 9 min | Sound | b&w Based on the film THE KISS (T. Edison 1896) in its original 35mm format, this digital film project is based on a structural re-shooting and re-recording of the original film in all the existing formats: analog, electronic and digital, in an evolutive form. The film is a reiteration of the act of kissing. The emphasis on the kiss, repeated and multiplied, while deteriorated in its own progression. The history of the evolution of formats through a kiss, an intimate and aesthetic relationship between media and audiovisual formats.

Spectral Landscape 3 x 35mm slide projectors | 25 min | Sound Alfredo Costa Monteiro | colour-b&w An intermittent, subtle, violent performance using three modified slide projectors to explore the image of nature and how it is revealed to us. 
A Landscape. Without color and movement. Only a Landscape. “At that beautiful moment between reality and dreaming, an incorporeal animal emerges from the darkness and light. Dark, violent and self-assured, it shares its fears of nature’s despair. But don’t be afraid—it’s an animal just like you. Do you see it? Wake up and open your eyes”

Admission is free of charge, please arrive on time, no latecomers.

The first phase of the SPECTRAL Wandering Sound and Images Seminar just wrapped up at the Studio d’en Haut in Nantes (France) hosted and organized by Mire Lab. Iris Film Collective member Alex MacKenzie is a part of the international team developing mobile film tools for wandering and itinerancy. The week wrapped with a nomadic screening hosted by Nomos Nomade in Saint Nazaire. Next phase of research takes place in July, lots more to come!