An all-analog program around the histories and traditions of the ‘flicker film’, from its origins in the 1960s up until today, highlighting some lesser shown key works.
While the occurrence of flicker on the screen had always been thought of as an unwanted distraction, the flicker genre explores this phenomenon, indigenous to the light-time medium of cinema, considering the absolutely fundamental elements of film and the mechanisms of its operations. Taking its cue from the shutter and the intermittent movement of camera and projector acting upon the strip of separate frames, the flicker film in its fashion emphasizes the nature of the separate frames, the rapid movement of the frames, and through analogy and by way of hyperbole, the flicker effect of the shutter. (Regina Cornwell)
“Cinema is not movement. This is the first thing. Cinema is not movement. Cinema is a projection of stills – which means images which do not move – in a very quick rhythm. And you can give the illusion of movement, of course, but this is a special case, and the film was invented originally for this special case… Where is, then, the articulation of cinema? Eisenstein, for example, said it’s the collision of two shots. But it’s very strange that nobody ever said that it’s not between shots but between frames.” (Peter Kubelka)
- Archangel (Victor Grauer, US, 1966, 9', colour & b&w, 16mm)
- Shutter Interface (Paul Sharits, US, 1975, 24', colour, 16mm, 2 x 16mm)
- Blink (Fluxfilm no. 5) (John Cavanaugh, US, 1966, 2', b&w, 16mm)
- Untitled (Neural Network, nn_oxb_1) (Jeff Weber, DE, 2021, 1', b&w, 35mm, 1.440 frames)
- Sequences I-IV (Jeff Weber, DE, 2021, 1', b&w, 35mm, 4 x 264 frames)
- TUSSLEMUSCLE (Steve Cossman, US, 2007, 5', colour, 16mm)
Program: Asel Bakchakova (Atelier OFFoff)
In collaboration with EYE Film Museum Amsterdam in the context of their exhibition and program series Underground: American Avant-Garde Film in the 1960s (October 2024 — 5 January 2025)
