There was a moment, now passed, when the capabilities of the internet and the dreams and ambitions of its users perfectly aligned, before the virtual had been unmasked as another instrument of capitalism and control. At this moment - June 23, 2003, to be precise -Second Life began. The sci-fi promise of a virtual world where people could live out some alternate existence had been fulfilled, rising from the aftermath of the dot-com crash.

Q: What is a ‘structural film’?

A: That's easy, everybody knows what a structural film is. It's when engineers design an aeroplane, or a bridge, and they build a model to find out if it will soon fall apart. The film shows where all the stresses are.

In collaboration with Exploratorium, Canyon Cinema is pleased to present an evening of immersive cinema La Région Decentrale (2016): A Prepared Projection Performance for Michael Snow’s La Région Centrale (1971) by Gibson + Recoder.

Crafted from the four reels of Michael Snow’s three-hour masterwork of structuralist cinema La Région Centrale, La Région Decentrale condenses, reframes, and restructures Snow’s work into an expanded cinema experiment. It presents a direct, physical engagement with musings on the mechanics of a medium that suffuses Snow’s work.