CONE + BULB - an evening of landmark Expanded Cinema is a presentation by Australian artist group Teaching and Learning Cinema (Lucas Ihlein and Louise Curham). Closely aligned with the Drill Hall Light Source exhibition’s focus on the technologies of cinema projection, we offer two groundbreaking works from the early days of the London Film-makers Co-op.

Anthony McCall’s Line Describing a Cone (1973) shifts our experience of cinema - from a two-dimensional image on a flat screen, to an illuminated cone occupying three-dimensional space. The work begins as a single point of light (made visible by non-toxic smoke from a haze machine). Gradually a sculptural form emerges, invoking Roland Barthes’ image of cinematic projection as a “dancing cone which pierces the darkness like a laser beam.” Audience members take great delight in interacting with this emerging “solid light object” over the work’s 30 minute duration.

Malcolm Le Grice’s Castle I (1966) uses light and projection in inventive and illuminating ways to disturb traditional notions of the screen. Known affectionately as “The Light Bulb Film”, Castle 1 combines found footage and sound with a solitary light bulb suspended directly in front of the screen. At intermittent points during the film, the light bulb is switched on, obliterating the projected image and illuminating the entire room. This is one of the earliest examples of expanded cinema, where the space of the cinematic projection, and the audience’s experience, are folded into the artwork itself.

CONE & BULB is a rare opportunity to experience expanded cinema under the guidance of Teaching and Learning Cinema (Louise Curham and Lucas Ihlein). For more than 20 years, TLC’s creative project has centred on making historical Expanded Cinema performances available for audiences to experience in the present. Their work is immersed in archival research, oral history, and inventive re-enactment, and seeks to promote the survival, continuity, and longevity of embodied live art. TLC’s current project experiments with synthetic DNA as a medium for long term data storage, using Malcolm Le Grice’s expanded cinema piece Horror Film 1 (1971) as a case study.

CONE & BULB program:

6:30pm-8pm

Introduction by Louise Curham and Lucas Ihlein from TLC

Castle I (1966) by Malcolm Le Grice: 16mm film projection (sound), with intermittent live flashing lightbulb. (9 minutes)

Short break

Line Describing a Cone (1973) by Anthony McCall, 16mm film projection (silent), with haze machine (30 minutes).

Informal discussion and a cup of tea with TLC.

Audience members should note that this event includes an intermittent bright flashing light, and a room filled with non-toxic haze. Please get in touch if you want to discuss accessibility and health concerns.

Films included in this event have been generously loaned by LUX, London (formed as a continuum of the London Filmmakers Co-op).

See https://teachingandlearningcinema.org/

Image: Anthony McCall, Line Describing a Cone (1973)