Experimenta Imperialism
It usually happens around this time of year and it happened yesterday morning: the London Film Festival catalogue flopped onto my doormat. I turned quickly to the ‘Experimenta’ pages to get a first glance of the "...cutting edge cinema, artists’ film and video and the avant-garde..." (they seemed to have managed to collect as many possible cliched generic terms in there as possible) fare on offer, my heart, (perhaps I should have predicted this) sank.
This weekend there is a fascinating series of screenings on at Tate Modern, Cinema of Prayoga, Indian Experimental Film and Video 1913 – 2006, which has been devised by Karen Mirza and Brad Butler following their work with the Indian organisation Filter India. One of their stated aims in the programme notes is to “...challenge the dominant US and Eurocentric histories mainly known in the UK”, presumably the idea is that this can be achieved in a some part by showing hitherto rarely seen experimental works from a non-western culture which ironically has one of the largest film industries in the world, but an all but invisible ‘avant-garde’. A rather ambitious aim perhaps, but a worthy one, and one that would appear to be the polar opposite of the London Film Festival’s ‘Experimenta’ programming.
I did a few calculations: in ‘Experimenta’ there is 1,248 minutes (38 individual works) of programme time (not including the Luis Recoder & Sandra Gibson performance – no duration given), 815 minutes (24 individual works) of this originates in the USA (not including the Luis Recoder & Sandra Gibson performance – no duration given, but also USA). So it certainly seems that US cultural dominance is alive and well at the LFF. Putting aside any residual Iraq/War on Terror driven anti-Americanism that might be somewhat biasing my current attitude towards the USA in general, the figures still add up to something considerably less than anything like a survey of international artists’/experimental/avant-garde/callitwhatyouwill film and video. The exception that serves to prove this rule is the ‘Queer China: An Evening with Cui Zi’en’ programme which looks like one of the few opportunities to see anything remotely ‘different’ in ‘Experimenta’. ‘Queerness’ elsewhere is represented by Mary Jordan’s film about Jack Smith and a retrospective of Kenneth Anger. Nowadays, in ‘the West’, queerness occupies pretty much a cultural centrality, hardly radical or transgressive, and Anger’s films tend to seem rather dated, their aesthetic has been pretty much absorbed by mainstream moving image culture, Scorpio Rising is pretty much classic Americana, and most of his films have been shown to death over the years, so why is it that we need to see them all again? Are there not other international filmmakers whose body of work is under-represented and crying out for the retrospective treatment? Queerness in China at least sounds as though it might have a currency and be genuinely ‘avant-garde’ and transgressive in its particular cultural context. In this particular context its inclusion looks more or less tokenistic.
Elsewhere there is a new film by James Benning. I happen to be a big fan of Benning’s work so will be watching this quite happily, but still, why after such a big slice of last year’s ‘Experimenta’ programming was dedicated to Benning, is he here again with a 120 minute film. The dominance of US film and video makers is problematic in itself, but to compond the problem most of those prominently represented are over middle aged white males whose approach and aesthetic hardly represents a current experimental enquiry or are particularly ‘avant-garde’ (Nathaniel Dorsky, Ken Jacobs) except by some kind of static moribund historical definition of that term. This would not be quite so bad if it weren't for the fact that we see the same pattern at LFF's 'Experimenta' year after year.
Paradoxically I am looking forward to seeing many of these films, but ideally I would want my experimental film festival, rather than to confirm established notions of the ‘avant-garde’, rather than to once again trot out the old names doing the same old work in the same old formulistic formations, to show me work by obscure and unknown artists from obscure and unknown places working in new and different ways with new and different concerns. Why, in what as part of a major international film festival, in what should be an international survey of artists’ film and video, is there virtually nothing (apart from a seven minute piece from Russia) from eastern Europe, nothing from Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, the Middle East, when there is a thriving and situated experimental practice in all these places? What is happening in African artists’ film and video? I certainly don’t know for sure, but I do remember seeing some interesting work from African countries at Documenta a few years ago. Why, when there is so much astonishing video work from central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan - and it’s not exactly a secret, there was a load of it in the Venice Biennale last year) are we not seeing this or work of its ilk?
Instead the ‘Experimenta’ strand with its quaintly titled ‘Avant-garde Weekend’, presents an international experimental practice as being predominantly American and male. I should also note that only six out of the 37 films screening are by women and that even local practice is woefully under-represented by a measly three films. This selection and programming is lazy, safe, unadventurous, conservative and tired. As interesting as any of the individual works might be on their own terms, overall ‘Experimenta’ fundamentally presents a hegemonic distortion of global experimental film and video practice.
This weekend there is a fascinating series of screenings on at Tate Modern, Cinema of Prayoga, Indian Experimental Film and Video 1913 – 2006, which has been devised by Karen Mirza and Brad Butler following their work with the Indian organisation Filter India. One of their stated aims in the programme notes is to “...challenge the dominant US and Eurocentric histories mainly known in the UK”, presumably the idea is that this can be achieved in a some part by showing hitherto rarely seen experimental works from a non-western culture which ironically has one of the largest film industries in the world, but an all but invisible ‘avant-garde’. A rather ambitious aim perhaps, but a worthy one, and one that would appear to be the polar opposite of the London Film Festival’s ‘Experimenta’ programming.
I did a few calculations: in ‘Experimenta’ there is 1,248 minutes (38 individual works) of programme time (not including the Luis Recoder & Sandra Gibson performance – no duration given), 815 minutes (24 individual works) of this originates in the USA (not including the Luis Recoder & Sandra Gibson performance – no duration given, but also USA). So it certainly seems that US cultural dominance is alive and well at the LFF. Putting aside any residual Iraq/War on Terror driven anti-Americanism that might be somewhat biasing my current attitude towards the USA in general, the figures still add up to something considerably less than anything like a survey of international artists’/experimental/avant-garde/callitwhatyouwill film and video. The exception that serves to prove this rule is the ‘Queer China: An Evening with Cui Zi’en’ programme which looks like one of the few opportunities to see anything remotely ‘different’ in ‘Experimenta’. ‘Queerness’ elsewhere is represented by Mary Jordan’s film about Jack Smith and a retrospective of Kenneth Anger. Nowadays, in ‘the West’, queerness occupies pretty much a cultural centrality, hardly radical or transgressive, and Anger’s films tend to seem rather dated, their aesthetic has been pretty much absorbed by mainstream moving image culture, Scorpio Rising is pretty much classic Americana, and most of his films have been shown to death over the years, so why is it that we need to see them all again? Are there not other international filmmakers whose body of work is under-represented and crying out for the retrospective treatment? Queerness in China at least sounds as though it might have a currency and be genuinely ‘avant-garde’ and transgressive in its particular cultural context. In this particular context its inclusion looks more or less tokenistic.
Elsewhere there is a new film by James Benning. I happen to be a big fan of Benning’s work so will be watching this quite happily, but still, why after such a big slice of last year’s ‘Experimenta’ programming was dedicated to Benning, is he here again with a 120 minute film. The dominance of US film and video makers is problematic in itself, but to compond the problem most of those prominently represented are over middle aged white males whose approach and aesthetic hardly represents a current experimental enquiry or are particularly ‘avant-garde’ (Nathaniel Dorsky, Ken Jacobs) except by some kind of static moribund historical definition of that term. This would not be quite so bad if it weren't for the fact that we see the same pattern at LFF's 'Experimenta' year after year.
Paradoxically I am looking forward to seeing many of these films, but ideally I would want my experimental film festival, rather than to confirm established notions of the ‘avant-garde’, rather than to once again trot out the old names doing the same old work in the same old formulistic formations, to show me work by obscure and unknown artists from obscure and unknown places working in new and different ways with new and different concerns. Why, in what as part of a major international film festival, in what should be an international survey of artists’ film and video, is there virtually nothing (apart from a seven minute piece from Russia) from eastern Europe, nothing from Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, the Middle East, when there is a thriving and situated experimental practice in all these places? What is happening in African artists’ film and video? I certainly don’t know for sure, but I do remember seeing some interesting work from African countries at Documenta a few years ago. Why, when there is so much astonishing video work from central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan - and it’s not exactly a secret, there was a load of it in the Venice Biennale last year) are we not seeing this or work of its ilk?
Instead the ‘Experimenta’ strand with its quaintly titled ‘Avant-garde Weekend’, presents an international experimental practice as being predominantly American and male. I should also note that only six out of the 37 films screening are by women and that even local practice is woefully under-represented by a measly three films. This selection and programming is lazy, safe, unadventurous, conservative and tired. As interesting as any of the individual works might be on their own terms, overall ‘Experimenta’ fundamentally presents a hegemonic distortion of global experimental film and video practice.
posted by Steven Ball at 11:58 am
6 Comments:
Hmm as you say this has been going on for years; if you dust off programmes from the early 90's when the Film Co-op and LEA (and then the Umbrella) where responsible for the programming of the experimental bit of the London Film Festival you see a similar problem (though more pronounced in the film section). One can probably trace the roots even further back to that (unsent) first Co-op telegram. The compass was pointed westward from the word go. This is perhaps just one of the reasons why some have argued on occasion for a complete dismantling of the whole funded UK “experimental” film & video system. Certainly it seems beyond reform.
I'm not so sure that it's so much the funded UK system that's the issue here, by all accounts it's being dismantled now anyway. But the lineage you draw from the NY Film Coop and the Mekas telegram is interesting, reminds me that the early LFMC had the likes of Dwoskin (an ex-pat American of course) when trawling for filmmakers in the UK resorted to importing US films because he couldn't find any here. I think it would be a bit of a stretch though to suggest that therefore the whole of the UK 'experimental' scene grew out of a US franchise, thus predating the commercial models like St*rb*cks et al. It's an attractive analogy though!
So my 'why American' question, is sort of twofold and you have provided the obvious answer wrt the immediate cultural sector, but in geocultural terms there is still this question. I could have griped more particularly about the lack of local work, but that would just be parochial, or the lack of women filmmakers. This latter is perhaps particularly pertinent when set against the stature of the big American guys like Benning and Dorsky, who like a lot of US experimental filmmakers, appear to perpetuate this Brakhagian romantic myth of the lone male artist visionary, a sort of heroic figure. It doesn't take much of a dip into Said's 'Cultural Imperialism' to understand how these constructions are so often set against the background of imperialist plundering, the slave trade, the invasion of Australia, etc, and yet the dominant artistic narratives at best ignore and at worst implicitely endorse this, relying on that cultural imperialism. These of course then become the dominant cultural models. With the US (and I hasten to add, the UK)administration's global actions as the background, there seems to be a sort of blinkered 'business as usual' approach. I'm not suggesting that there should be an explicit and obvious politicisation of experimental film and video, but there hardly seems to be the recognition that it occurs, not in an hermetic cultural aesthetic vacuum, but against the background of events which actively seek to surpress difference. I think artists' film and video should be progressive and outward looking, it should be situated and engaged and if anyone takes the trouble to look around the world, it is. The rest of the LFF programme does a pretty good job of representing other cultural perspectives from other parts of the world. It'ssuch a shame that the Experimenta section is the one that is the most conservative and culturally blinkered.
that's Said's 'Culture AND Imperialism' of course
I don’t think I was suggesting that the whole UK scene was a US franchise as clearly it quickly developed its own distinctive quirks and obsessions however from a curatorial point of view that initial compass setting was important and became enshrined in LFMC distribution and programming. Given how small and narrow the funded UK experimental scene is that setting seems to have remained pretty much unchanged indeed as the scene becomes ever more inward looking an historicised it is perhaps inevitable that we are seeing more not less US work.
I don’t think I was suggesting that the whole UK scene was a US franchise
No but I was! Or to be more specific, that's what the LFMC grew out of. So yes there the direction was set. But that was kind of inevitable back then, the world was a bigger place and culturally things travelled more slowly. I think it should, and could, be different now if the LFF programmes (and let's not forget this is the issue under discussion here) were programmed by people with less of an abiding interest in US (and related) experimental film. I don't quite share your fatalism about the inevitability, it just needs a bit of curatorial will to do something a bit different here and there.
Well I hope I wasn't being fatalistic just trying to get at the mechnism underneath, which it seems we are broadly agreed on.
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