Expanded Cinema

This special screening provides a rare opportunity to experience a number of the formative films of the “expanded cinema” canon.

Starting in the mid-sixties, that term was coined to describe works that were fusing traditions of experimental filmmaking and visual art practices with new technologies, oftentimes taking the films out of the cinema and into installation or performance contexts. Tonight’s program begins in the Film/Video Theater with key films from the mid-sixties including Paul Sharits’s extraordinary flicker film Ray Gun Virus (1966); James Whitney’s astonishing early computer animation Lapis (1966); and Andy Warhol’s double projection masterpiece Outer and Inner Space (1965).

We then move to the Performance Space for a screening of Anthony McCall’s landmark Line Describing a Cone (1973), where a fog machine will transform the beam of light from the 16mm film projector into a solid, sculptural object. Audience interaction with the projection is encouraged as cinema becomes a social, participatory event! (approx. 100 mins. total, 16mm)

Stay after the screening for a reception with hors d’oeuvres by Heirloom and a cash bar. Tickets are extremely limited—get yours early.