Medium practices

In this essay I develop a topic addressed in my book, Film Art Phenomena: the question of medium specificity. Rosalind Krauss's essay 'Art In the Age of the Post-Medium Condition' has catalysed a move away from medium specificity to hybridity. I propose that questions of medium cannot be ignored, since they carry their own history and give rise to specific formal traits and possibilities. The research involves close critical analysis of four moving image works that have not previously been written about: two made with film, and one each with computer and mobile phone. The analyses are conducted by reference to my ideas about how technological peculiarities inform and inflect practice: I see the work's material composition, its form and final meaning as intricately bound up with each other. Film, video and the computer give rise to specific forms of moving image, partly because artists exploit a medium’s peculiarities, and because certain media lend themselves to some methodologies and not others. I do not seek hard distinctions between these media, but discuss them in terms of predispositions. For example, I discuss a 16mm cine film in which the shifting visibility of grain raises ideas around movement and stillness. The aim is to develop a definition of medium specificity, in relation to the moving image, that is not essentialist in the way previous versions were criticised for being, that is, based on ideas of "material substrate" (Wollen). I argue that film is a medium of stages, in contrast to the modern tapeless camcorder, in which all functions of recording, storage, playback and even editing are contained in a single device. Supported by a travel grant, I presented a version of this essay at the International Conference of Experimental Media Congress, Toronto, in April 2011, along with a selection of works: http://www.experimentalcongress.org/full-schedule

Wild interior

Text contributed to the exhibition catalogue for Wild Interior, Suky Best’s solo show, Danielle Arnaud Gallery, Lonodn, 23 May - 15 June 2014

What's wrong with cinema in the gallery?

This article builds on my earlier research (e.g. on William Raban's site-specific work) into the contemporary problem of showing moving image work in art galleries. The misfit between works' formal strategies and their mode of presentation is an ongoing issue. The essay is based on a review of two exhibitions held in London in 2011 of video works by Philippe Parreno, and Douglas Gordon. Parreno's show was praised as novel and exemplary for the way in which it marshalled its audience from room to room to watch the films, but I argue that the relationship between the work and the way it is presented is arbitrary. In the case of Douglas Gordon’s show I argue that the work is a conventional movie masquerading as an installation. In each case I conduct a rigorous analysis of the work itself and how it has been installed. My writing is informed by formalist and constructivist approaches, and considers the relationship between the work's form and its output / presentation, paying attention specifically to the relationship between these two aspects, which I see as equally important. The article analyses contemporary exhibition practices in order to arrive at new theories and working methods for showing moving images in galleries. It draws attention to the tradition of exhibiting in alternative venues, where filmmakers, as opposed to "gallery" artists, have been much more successful in making moving image installations. The research aims to help artists and writers to better understand the issues and histories surrounding the making and showing of film and video in 'art' spaces. In a context where most art critics are not specifically informed about the history and theory of experimental film and video practice, the research seeks to raise the level of debate around video, and latterly film, projections in art galleries

Peter Kubelka's Arnulf Rainer

In this essay I will look at Peter Kubelka’s classic film Arnulf Rainer (6 1/2 minutes, black and white, optical sound, 35mm, 1960) in terms of the way it can be seen to operate around a number of dichotomies, between dark and light and black and white, sound and image, balance and asymmetry, film-strip and projection, onscreen and in-brain, work and context. I will also consider some of the wider issues that arise about lightness and darkness generally, and about the scope and purpose of formal analysis

Nicky Hamlyn: Zoetrope

A prolific artist and filmmaker, Nicky Hamlyn is known for his precisely structured, observational 16mm films. Zoetrope includes work from the last decade of his artistic practice, some exhibited for the first time, and includes a new site-specific commission made for London Gallery West

Nicholas Sinclair: urban palimpsest

An introductory essay to Nicholas Sinclair's photography book Five Cities

Deceptive reflections: on the first ten minutes of Slow Glass

Essay on John Smith's longest 16mm film, 'Slow Glass' (1988-91), accompanying a DVD box set published by LUX containing a comprehensive selection of John Smith's film and video works made between 1975 and 2007. The accompanying booklets contain essays by Adrian Danks, Nicky Hamlyn and Ian Christie

Film art phenomena

Hamlyn's major new study treats artists' film conceptually in order to explore key categories that connect different works and film-makers: from framing to digital media, installation to interactivity, point of view to sound. In so doing he considers the work of Stan Brakhage, Malcolm Le Grice and Michael Snow, as well as younger artists such as Karen Mirza and Brad Butler, Jennifer Nightingale, and Colin Crockatt, among many others