Page 70 - Studio International - November December 1975

Chris Welsby Wind Vane 1972

image and expands to a large screen area of six pairs of screens. Additionally, a photoelectric cell triggers the
images, then contracts the space down to a 'normal' size strobe every time the fluctuating light level from one of
again. The superimposition of the colour loops yields the screens exceeds a certain intensity; the strobe then
complex compositions of colour as well as of rhythm,
and the screen space is not accepted as given but is
exploited as needed. There is a strong sense of shifting
lines of horizontality and verticality as the screen shape
shifts. In this way, Le Grice effectively activates what is
normally passive screen space.
Much of the work done in expanded cinema has been
centred on the expanded possibilities of screen space.
One of Chris Welsby's landscape films, Wind Vane,
illustrates how effectively this newly activated space can
be used. The spatial exigencies of twin-screen
projection become of primary importance in this film
because the adjacency of the screen images is related to
the adjacency of the filming technique : two cameras
were placed about 50 feet apart on tripods which
included wind vane attachments, so that the wind
direction and speed determined the direction and speed
of the pans of the two freely panning cameras. The
landscape images are more or less coincident, and the Ron Haselden Railway Trolley (first performed 1973)
attempt by the spectator to visually conjoin the two
spaces (already conjoined on the screen) sets up the briefly bleaches the screens and accentuates the figure of
primary tension of this film. As the cameras pan, one the normally overshadowed performer. The articulation of
expects an overlap between the screens (from one to time and space relations is sufficiently complex to
another) but gets only overlap in the screens (when they require multiple viewings just to begin to grasp their
point to the same object). The adjacency of the two structure. Yet it is this development of the screen space
spaces is constantly shifting from (almost) complete and pre-screen space, and the role of time in realizing
similarity of field to complete dissimilarity. And within the movement in those spaces, which structure the film (the
dissimilarity the space can be more or less contiguous. choreography of space and time-structure were evolved
The shrewd choice of a representational image which from the two-dimensional plan of a railway trolley). But
fully exploits the twin-screen format is Welsby's perhaps the most important element of this piece is that
strength. every time it is performed it is rephotographed by the
Le Grice, too, has made an expanded film work which camera in the theatre, and that footage (of screens and
involves four cameras recording the same event (a picnic) performer) is incorporated into the next showing. This
from four positions ; these four perspectives are then emphasizes the constant metamorphosis of the work,
flattened by projection in a square (2 screen x 2 screen) and successfully incorporates the history of past
format. Called Fête Champêtre, it yanks the images from productions and future productions into the intense
their spatial context and demands of the spectator a presentness of the current performance. Haselden has
mental, rather than immediately visual, reconstruction. noted that he does 'not envisage the piece ever reaching
The significance of the film lies in the nexus between the final form ;'6 what is crucial is the process of
conventional spatial experience and the visual (film) experiencing and recording movement in space and in
experience of that space. time.
This aspect of expanded cinema concentrates on the The use of rephotography to reincorporate past
flat reflective surface of the screen and on an analysis of productions finds its simplest expression in William
the way the screen can be used and activated. Artists Raban's 2'45". A hundred feet of film (lasting two
have also dealt with the space in front of the screen, minutes and forty-five seconds) is exposed on each of
engaging the entire space of the cinema. This work several successive performances. On the first one, the
relates back to earlier multi-media theatrical events audience is filmed (from the rear) watching a blank
designed to make full use of the theatre/cinema walls screen, while Raban briefly announces the title, date, and
and space. Ron Haselden is a film-maker who has used place of the show and simultaneously records the
some of the multi-media techniques in a way which more audience response as it sits for almost three minutes
thoroughly analyzes the use of that space. His Railway watching 'nothing'. This is repeated on each successive
Trolley is an elaborate production which includes three show, except that the audience next watches not the
screens of filmed images, a strobe flash, a performer, and a blank screen, but the film of the first show, and then the
camera recording the event. The three screens present film of the film of the first show, etc. The rephotography,
three different types of movement in space (also filmed at then, acts not only to challenge the traditional
different speeds) and this engages with the simple disengagement of the audience, but also extends the
spatial movements of the performer just in front of the sense of production-time from the past into the present,
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