Experimental Cinema: Structures and Systems

This book examines a range of systems and structures that film and video artists have developed in works spanning the late 1960s to the present, often in response to the changing technologies and medium of cinema.

Simon Payne considers the affinities that film and video works share with aspects of painting, sculpture and music. He argues that the evolution of methodical strategies in artists' cinema can be traced back to the first avant-garde films made a century ago between 1921-1924. Tracing the lineage of key figures and international groups that have formed part of the picture since then, he posits that the most thorough formal exploration of cinema can be credited to a generation of artists that began making films in Britain in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

He goes on to analyse the work of key filmmakers including Peter Gidal, David Hall, Malcolm Le Grice, Annabel Nicolson, Lis Rhodes and Guy Sherwin. Paying close attention to their recent films and videos as well as those of diverse younger artists working in a similar tradition. Experimental Cinema, Structures and Systems traces a unique and influential lineage that has defined some of the central preoccupations of experimental film and video, which tests our expectations of cinema, television and the moving image.