From: Steven Ball (email suppressed)
Date: Tue Jan 08 2008 - 16:11:17 PST
Freya,
If you're in London come and see us at the British Artists' Film and
Video Study Collection (see www.studycollection.org.uk) at Central St
Martins, we have a lot of material.
Re Circles, you know it became Cinenova which is still in existence,
see:
http://www.cinenova.org.uk
Steven Ball
On 8 Jan 2008, at 22:39, Freya wrote:
> Danni I love you! Thanks! :)
>
> I've already learned some intresting things from there
> too.
>
> This experimental film thing is certainly a
> complicated affair! I never thought when I started
> looking into it that I would find out so many things.
> I feel a bit like I've fallen down the rabbit hole.
>
> I found that with many things lately, theres always
> such a wealth of things below the surface. Some of the
> stuff I've stumbled into lately has really shocked me
> to the core, so all the experimental film stuff
> shouldn't suprise me so much.
>
> I guess I've somehow over the years moved the world
> that exists in my imagination, closer to the world the
> way I would like it to be, as opposed to the way that
> it really is. IYSWIM.
>
> Apart from the David Curtis book, I'm also finding
> "Experimental Cinema in the digital age" incredibly
> useful. Malcolm Le Grice seems to have sort of
> accepted the role of Arch Villan in it all and then
> goes about documenting it!
>
> It's really useful because you get all kinds of
> different views in one book. Sadly theres not a
> feminist critique of Malcolm in there ;) which is why
> I'd like to track down some more information about
> circles. It seems from the stuff that David Curtis
> writes about that there was a whole bunch of stuff
> that arose from "Film as Film", it's a shame that
> there wasn't a documented debate of some sort.
> Obviously that would be out of the scope of David's
> book but it would have been so good to have had
> something like that in Malcolms book. I imagine that
> Malcolm feels like he has been fed to the lions enough
> times already however! ;)
>
> I wish I had found Peter Gidal's book at the start of
> my research because it's not an easy read (first word
> I read was adumbrated) and I'm really feeling booked
> out. I'm going to have to find a way to watch MTV for
> a couple of days or something to recover! ;) He seems
> to be the man to go to if you want a lot of political
> theory however. He also seems to be quite a Pan like
> figure. Very mischevious. Do you think he called the
> book "Materialist film" to annoy the hell out of
> Malcolm? ;)
>
> Anyway, it's kind of nice to see all these different
> viewpoints and it's really good that they are being at
> least partly documented. It's a shame that everyone
> can't work together more and make a diverse
> alternative cinematic space, (theres so few people
> into this stuff already) but maybe that is something
> that just needs to evolve over time.
>
> I'm drifting into book reviews almost which I'll save
> for another day.
>
> love
>
> Freya
>
>
> --- Danni Zuvela <email suppressed> wrote:
>
>> Hi Freya
>>
>> Happily there's recently been some extensive
>> research into the history of
>> alternative film and video distribution in the UK by
>> Julia Knight and Peter
>> Thomas. Check it out:
>>
>> http://alt-fv-distribution.net/papers.html
>>
>> Book will be too late for you but there are papers
>> aplenty here - good luck
>> writing yours
>>
>> danni
>>
>> On Jan 9, 2008 3:41 AM, Freya <email suppressed>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I'm presently working on my dissertation which I
>> now
>>> have less than a week to write! Yay! ;)
>>>
>>> While reasearching I have frequently come across
>>> referances to "circles". The group is mentioned a
>> few
>>> times in the David Curtis book "A history of..."
>> and
>>> I've just opened the Peter Gidal book "Materialist
>>> Film" for the first time and seen a referance
>> there
>>> too.
>>>
>>> From what I can tell neither book seems to have
>> any
>>> details about the group and so far I havn't
>> managed to
>>> find any information. Does anyone here know more,
>>> either suggested books where I might read about
>> the
>>> group or even personal experiences of anyone who
>> knew
>>> anything about the group, or even failing that if
>>> anyone who knows of someone who might have been
>>> involved who I could contact briefly to chat about
>> it?
>>>
>>> Perhaps if anyone even knows how I could contact
>> Lis
>>> Rhodes who was apparently a founder according to
>> the
>>> Lux website?
>>>
>>> Any information would be welcome. I know virtually
>>> nothing about the group, including even if it is
>> still
>>> going or if not what happened to it. It's
>> intresting
>>> because I knew quite a bit about the film co-op
>> and
>>> even a tiny bit about the free cinema movement but
>> I'd
>>> not even heard about circles till it was mentioned
>> in
>>> these books.
>>>
>>> I've come across some amazing and wonderful books
>> in
>>> my reasearch and will be telling you more about
>> them
>>> soon when I have a bit of a moment (er now is not
>> a
>>> good time!) ;) but if I had one big criticism of
>> the
>>> David Curtis book (which I'm loving actually!)
>> it's
>>> that it seems to stress the importance of circles
>> a
>>> few times but then doesn't really tell us anything
>>> about it or its history.
>>>
>>> Also if it's not being too greedy, if anyone wants
>> to
>>> tell me more about London Video Arts, I'd love to
>> hear
>>> about it. I know a little but would love to know
>> more!
>>> That's less important tho, although I guess it
>> might
>>> also be useful but I'm mostly just really, really
>>> curious about it. ;)
>>>
>>> Hope someone can help in any way. I might just not
>> be
>>> looking in the right places!
>>>
>>> love
>>>
>>> Freya
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
> ______________________________________________________________________
> ______________
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>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
> __________________________________________________________________
>>> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at
>> <email suppressed>.
>>>
>>
>>
>>
> __________________________________________________________________
>> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at
>> <email suppressed>.
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ______________________________________________________________________
> ______________
> Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page.
> http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs
>
>
> __________________________________________________________________
> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.