Filmaktion

Filmaktion was a loosely knit group of British experimental filmmakers who worked and performed together in the early 1970s. It included artists such as Malcolm Le Grice, Gill Eatherley, Annabel Nicolson and William Raban, figures associated with the milieu of structural and expanded cinema in Britain, particularly the London Filmmakers' Co-operative. The group sought to move beyond the conventional projection of a film onto a screen and to turn the screening itself into a live performance, using multiple projectors, superimposed images, hand manipulation of the film strip, the shadows of performers' bodies, and the interaction of projected light with the space of the room. This approach belonged to the movement known as expanded cinema, in which the boundary between film, installation and performance was deliberately dissolved. Filmaktion explored the materiality of film itself, treating light, grain, duration and the mechanics of the projector as expressive means in their own right. Though short-lived, the group played a notable role in the development of British avant-garde and experimental film and influenced later media-art practice.