The first in a series of screenings at Close-Up Cinema (London) that corresponds with a new book by Simon Payne, Experimental Cinema: Structures, Systems and Strategies. Vicky Smith has been making 16mm films since the late 1980s. Many of her films and film-performances have involved directly inscribing and recording physical actions, gestures and objects onto the filmstrip, by way of punctured holes, scratching, abrasion, printing with footsteps, bodily fluids, bicycle tyre tracks, and photograms of insects. Her films are energetic, materialist, corporeal and in that respect unruly. At the same time, their visual and aural rhythms directly relate to the metrical pulse of the film projector.
Vicky Smith will be present to introduce and discuss her work.
Programme:
- Noisy Tracks and Treads
Vicky Smith, 2012–26, 4 min, 16mm
Smith's film performances, Bicycle Tyre Track and 33 Frames per Foot, each leave behind a filmic residue that is visual and aural. For Noisy Tracks and Treads the optical sound zone of these traces has been reworked, amplified and rendered more dirty and noisy.
- Noisy Licking, Dribbling and Spitting
Vicky Smith, 2014, 4 min, 16mm
The film is made with the mouth alone. Licking, dribbling and spitting directly onto film generates the image and sound. I stained my tongue and then pressed it onto the filmstrip as though it was a stamping pad. I left a 40-frame gap between the first print and the next and then reduced each new impression by 1 frame. The licking section intersects with dribbling, where two methods of printing and painting overlap and are brought together.
- Primal
Vicky Smith, 2016, 10 min, 16mm
I had wanted to make a film by marking directly onto celluloid, yet the hard-edged lines like those made by Len Lye did not capture the sense of fragility and uncertainty that was important to me. Instead, I softened the emulsion of old unprocessed fogged negative and rubbed it away until it yielded soft stain-like shapes and textures. The sounds by Shirley Pegna are made by rubbing materials against the mic.
- Small Things Moving in Unison
Vicky Smith, 2018, 6 min, 16mm
Thousands of tiny perforations made directly in 16mm black leader. These repetitive physical actions generate marks that describe relational fields.
- Not (A) Part
Vicky Smith, 2019, 6 min 16mm
NOT (A) PART was conceived in relation to the rapid decline of flying insects and the recurrence of films that work with the subject or material of flying insects. Numerous dead bees found on walks were positioned directly onto negative film and contact printed. Occupying approximately 24 frames they appear at a rate of 1 bee per second. The length of the film is determined by how many specimens are found over a specified period of time.
- Re:exposure
Vicky Smith, 2021, 8 min, 16mm
This film is a reflection on exposure (of skin to the sun, and of film to light) and the environmental, ecological, social and hereditary factors that impact ageing. Textures of the skin and old photos of my mother are seen in close-up. The DIY analogue film processing method gives this material a burnt look, while fogged and scratched sections emphasize the damage to skin and film material.
- Spinning
Vicky Smith, 2022, 3 min, 16mm
At the start of this film, we see the Smith facing eight different ways, having rotated her position in front of the camera. These eight stances correspond with the speed that her camera is running at: a frame rate of 8 frames per second. The frame rate and number of positions are halved, and halved again, until reaching the minimum requirement to perform the function of a thaumatrope.
- Shedding
Vicky Smith, 2024, 4min, 16mm
The superimposed images of the artist in this film, and the gradual lessening of the visual layering, suggest the act of shedding skin. She also repeatedly falls out of frame, as if from a pedestal. The systematic nature of the film's actions can be read as symbolic.
- Le Corps Morcelé
Vicky Smith, 2025, 4 min, 16mm
Animation, performance and hand-processed film combine to describe the body repeatedly succumbing to gravity. As multiple superimpositions accrue, the individual body becomes a mass of limbs. Echoing the gestures of collapse, the film itself, which passed repeatedly through the camera, also becomes depleted.
- Deliquesce
Vicky Smith, 2022, 3 min, 16mm
Along with Shedding and Le Corps Morcelé, this film is part of the Unlikeness series. The loop can be projected multiple times, as suits the situation. It can be screened before or after the other Unlikeness films. The film shows Smith repeatedly submerging and emerging from the sea.
Screening as part of Experimental Cinema: Structures, Systems and Strategies
This screening is supported by the Centre for Media, Arts and Creative Technologies (MACT) at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge.
