Back at Exploding Cinema
Combatting the cinema-industrial complex
ReidsonFilm paid another visit to the Exploding Cinema gang recently, for a special Live Cinema event. “What is Live Cinema?”, you might ask. Well, according to the organisers this is something that we would have to figure out over the course of the evening.
For new arrivals to ReidsonFilm (and where have you been?) Exploding Cinema is a longstanding underground collective that finds adventurous sites where they can put on an evening of truly independent short films.
Exploding Cinema makes no distinction between a film that costs £10 or one costing £10000. And they have a self-described radical anti-curatorial policy: they will screen any film, and that really means anything and everything, with one proviso – the film has to have a running time under 20 minutes…
Returning to the fantastic venue Iklectik, in Waterloo, we found a room cluttered with cables, instruments, projectors, and other contraptions all of which would come into play throughout the night. Huge credit is due to the organisers of this multimedia extravaganza, for presenting such a wide range of films and performances while managing to keep the tech up and running throughout the event with very few hiccups.
Opening the event was Brighton-based band Solid Birds Flying, who provided a live soundtrack to Beer Caddisfly, a short film produced by their guitarist and vocalist Simon Mclennan. The film was shot in black-and-white Super 8, and featured a man running through the urban sprawl of pre-gentrification Shoreditch. The film was at times frantic, but then meditative and the band did a great job of reflecting this with their music. The slow drone of the accordion was captivating and in my opinion really elevated the film beyond its original score.
In the post-performance discussion, there was strong emphasis on this being a short film as opposed to a music video. “I HATE music videos!”, proclaimed Simon Mclennan. This certainly felt in keeping with the Exploding Cinema ethos.
Colette Rouhier’s When in Rome was an entertaining change of direction involving a spoken word performance on the lifestyle and antics of Ancient Roman youth. Using a slide projector to display images of ancient Roman mosaics, statues and ruins, Colette delivered a stream of consciousness account of their imagined lives using vernacular I can only describe as somewhere between Ali G and Catherine Tate’s Lauren Cooper. Certainly, some of the biggest laughs of the evening came out of When in Rome, and for better or for worse it reminded me of the early noughties era of British comedy obsessed with ‘chav’ culture which, like the Romans it was depicting, felt a bit antiquated.
Next we had I AM YOUR ERROR MESSAGE, a head-scratching piece of creative brilliance from Jennet Thomas that involved a costumed performer interacting live with video projection/animation. The performance was visually striking, with garish, traffic-cone orange and white colours erupting on screen (matched by the costume). We got the sense that we were being guided through a deranged anti-anxiety YouTube tutorial which was simultaneously trying to sell us a new suburban housing development.
At one point it featured a spectacularly bejewelled anatomical model of a brain stem – make of that what you will. The performance was at once satirical, thought provoking, and sinister, etching itself onto my brain stem like all modern ‘digital content’ is designed to do. While a recording of this piece is available online, ReidsonFilm strongly encourages a live viewing of I AM YOUR ERROR MESSAGE, if you are ever fortunate enough to have the opportunity.
Blending seamlessly in following a short interlude was the cinematic installation Thrum VII by Will Bishop-Stephen. Thrum VII involved a large mechanical contraption featuring a bicycle wheel, seashells and figurines rotating on an axis. Using a selection of clamps and cameras, Thrum comes to life as a kinetic sculpture projecting moving images across the room, accompanied by striking acoustics created by parts of the device repeatedly making contact with each other. What a spectacle this was to behold!
Will was particularly delighted by the opportunity to tinker with his device in situ, whereas in previous iterations he had to set up the installation and leave it be. Thrum VII was mesmerising. Its peculiar whirring and repeating images were reminiscent of some primordial cinematic form: Eadward Muybridge’s Horse in Motion/Zoopraxiscope came to mind as the sculptures’ figurines spun around and around.
no stars no funding no taste
ReidsonFilm would struggle to capture every performance of the evening as there were simply too many to name… but for the more adventurous amongst you Exploding Cinema have managed to piece together fragments of the evening here:
What makes this event so special is that all of the participants brought together exciting and creative ideas which would struggle to get representation in more ‘mainstream’ arts venues.
This is why spaces like Iklectik are so important, providing room for artists and collectives like Exploding Cinema to push boundaries and show us something completely different. Right now Iklectik is involved in a fight for survival, as their landlord is not renewing the lease for their venue in Old Paradise Yard, Waterloo. The Guy’s and St Thomas’ Foundation (not affiliated with the NHS Trust) is aiming to sell the land, evicting a number of artists and creative small businesses, replacing them with a new office development. Alongside others, Iklectik are making an urgent appeal for support: you can read more about this and how you can get involved here – https://www.iklectik.org/saveiklectik
P.S. of course if you have made a short film of late, Exploding Cinema always welcomes submissions. They are back at the Cinema Museum in a couple of weeks…
