Malcolm Le Grice

[[Cultural Context]] [[Influences]] [[Legacy]] <img src= "https://static.wixstatic.com/media/8ee72d_eb3590bbb0c74e0481a1cf0cb82ed62d.jpg/v1/fill/w_530,h_240,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01/8ee72d_eb3590bbb0c74e0481a1cf0cb82ed62d.jpg" /> Malcolm Le Grice is a well established British artist, mostly credited for his cinematic work in the late 20th century. Le Grice attended school for painting. However, in the 60’s he also began producing film and video art. Le Grice’s films have been shown throughout the world, and he has contributed major writings on experimental film, most noteworthy being “Abstract Film and Beyond” ([["BIOGRAPHY"|Sources]]). Some of his most famous works include //Berlin Horse// and //Threshold//. Made in 1972, //Threshold// is an abstracted film running approximately thirteen minutes long, shot on 16mm film. The beginning sequence consists of red and green coloring. These colors shift and change and eventually a recording of border patrol officers are shown, as well as a computer generated animation of circular loops. This imagery is manipulated, repeated, and layered in various ways. Threshold is an excellent representation of avant garde experimentation taking place in the late 20th century and the culture such a piece came out of. <img src= "http://www.markwebber.org.uk/uploaded_images/threshold13.jpg" /> [[Sources]]

After years of war and unrest, there was a resurgence of abstract art, as well as amateur filmmaking. In the late 20th century, the idea of expanded cinema became a prominent movement in film and cinema. Artists experimented with medium and technique to create a diverse and abstracted form of expression, one veering away from the bounds of traditional filmmaking ([[Furniss|Sources]]). Along with this, there were a growing number of political films, which was a relatively untouched approach. The use of found footage was a prevalent tool in creating such films. The government had assigned certain people to record events during WWII, so there was access to a lot of videos ([[Furniss|Sources]]). Threshold is not necessarily a politically charged film. However, Le Grice does take advantage of political footage. One of the main images of the film is of border guards on patrol at a frontier post. Rather than using the guards to serve a political purpose, Le Grice creates a whole new reality. He recycles a select number of imagery in //Threshold//, which circulate and transform in various ways. <img src= "http://www.digicult.it/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Malcom-le-Grice-3.png" /> The new avant garde films, under the term of expanded cinema, seemed to have shifted towards a new form of nonobjecivity. With all of the technological advances and pltehroa of information and access thereof, “we're in direct contact with the human condition; there's no longer any need to represent it through art. Not only does this release cinema; it virtually forces cinema to move beyond the objective human condition into newer extra-objective territory” ([[Youngblood, 79|Sources]]). A prevalent wonder of humans was the phenomenon of their own consciousness and artists began exploring such ideas; " 'Art never has been an attempt to grasp reality as a whole— that is beyond our human capacity; it was never even an attempt to represent the totality of appearances; but rather it has been the piecemeal recognition and patient fixation of what is significant in human experience.' We're beginning to understand that 'what is significant in human experience'for contemporary man is the awareness of consciousness, the recognition of the process of perception" ([[Youngblood, 76|Sources]]). Rather than trying to explain this, artists such as Le Grice, attempted to depict and analyze the experience of consciousness. [[Legacy]] [[Influences]] [[Sources]] [[Malcolm Le Grice]]

There were a number of artists producing work alongside Le Grice, using similar techniques and aesthetics, including Harry Smith and Robert Breer. Smith contributed to the growing realm of expanded cinema, using screen masks and colored abstract patterns in his work. One of his most notable films was //No 12 Heaven and Earth Magic//, made just a decade prior to //Threshold// ([[Furniss|Sources]]). <img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/27/Heavenearth2.jpg" /> Le Grice has referenced early 20th century Italian Futurism, which he speaks about in his writings. There can be correlations seen specifically with the work of Umberto Boccioni, whose own work delt greatly with fragmentation and changing of forms ([[Stephens|Sources]]). Le Grice has also spoken of artist Jasper Johns as being a source of inspiration for him ([[Gidal, 35|Sources]]). Johns was an abstract expressionist painter and printer. He experimented in his work and placed emphasis on process, which Le Grice deemed crucial, as well. <img src="https://sothebys-com.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/420dbe8/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2000x1246+0+0/resize/684x426!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsothebys-com.brightspotcdn.com%2Fe1%2Fc3%2F8d7054ed4b2fb5fb10a3938abac7%2F801n09927-9yftj.jpg"> Crucial to Le Grice's work is the influence of structuralist film, a topic which he had published writings about. In structuralism, there is emphasis on the medium being the message, letting film be film; “An avant-garde film defined by its development towards increased materialism and materialist function does not represent or document anything. The film produces certain relations between segments, between what the camera is aimed at and the way that 'image' is presented” ([[Gidal, 1|Sources]]). The content is not the focus in structuralist films, rather it is in the way in which it is presented in relation to audience and medium. Le Grice utilizes various printing techniques such as color filtering, mattes and multiple superimpositions. Towards the beginning, there is also exposure to the film, causing the edges to fog up. There is no illusionment. A prevalent tool used is "repetition in duration", which doing so forces viewers to "attempt to decipher both the film's material and the film's construct, and to decipher the precise transformations that each coincidence of cinematic techniques produces" ([[Gidal, 1|Sources]]). In //Threshold//, Le Grice cycles the same samples of imagery as "the Structural/Materialist film must minimise the content in its overpowering, imagistically seductive sense, in an attempt to get through this miasmic area of 'experience' and proceed with film as film" ([[Gidal, 2|Sources]]). In traditional, narrative cinema, the audience is most often passive, watching events unfold. While viewing abstracted structuralist films, viewers have to be actively discerning and making connections. In Malcom's writings, he had said "the notion of fixity of meaning for a work, somehow held within it as an essence, is an illusion encouraged by our cultural habits of passive awareness. I am interested in transformation, the modes and qualities thereof. and increation - the bringing about of unpredictable events which existed nowhere before their realization" ([[Gidal|Sources]]). [[Cultural Context]] [[Legacy]] [[Sources]] [[Malcolm Le Grice]]

<img src="https://farm6.static.flickr.com/5480/11188805574_6c225c0c8c_z.jpg" /> Malcolm Le Grice became well known for layering multiple projections onto one another. Within today's video art, we see layered projections quite often. Le Grice's expanded performances were also quite groundbreaking and influential. The projecting of his films became an improvised performance, another level of experiencing the art form. Artist Sanya Kantarovsky, has produced installations combining technology and art ([[Rosenburg|Sources]]). In his piece //Happy Soul//, he combines paintings with projections of colors. This layered and multimedia effect, reflects those which Le Grice brought into public attention. <img src="https://d5wt70d4gnm1t.cloudfront.net/media/a-s/articles/1577-440730888639/5-artists-who-fuse-painting-and-projection-900x450.jpg" /> Similarly, Dave Miko and Tom Thayer have created abstract installations ([[Rosenburg|Sources]]). The coloring is very reminiscent of those present in //Threshold//. <img src="https://d5wt70d4gnm1t.cloudfront.net/media/a-s/articles/1577-437190148693/5-artists-who-fuse-painting-and-projection-900x450.jpg" /> Following in line with the idea of expanded cinema and performance, artists have created varying levels of this concept as technology advances. In 1999, Paul Sermon created installations called //Telematic Dreaming// <a href=https://homi.neocities.org/2019/t/mklauber_telematic_dreaming_.html target=“_blank”>Telematic Dreaming</a>. The art piece consisted of projections being displayed on beds, connecting to two different sites. This use of technology relates to Le Grice's improvised performances of //Threshold//, and the ways in which ideas grow with technology. [[Cultural Context]] [[Influences]] [[Sources]] [[Malcolm Le Grice]]

“BIOGRAPHY.” Malcolmlegrice, 2014, https://www.malcolmlegrice.com/biography. Furniss, Maureen. “Animation as Modern Art” (excerpt) A New History of Animation. New York, Thames & Hudson, 2016 Furniss, Maureen. “Post-War Experimentalism” A New History of Animation. New York, Thames & Hudson, 2016. Gidal, Peter. Structural Film Anthology. British Film Institute, 1976. “Jasper Johns and His Paintings.” Jasper Johns - Paintings, Biography, Quotes of Jasper Johns, 2010, http://www.jasper-johns.org/. Rosenberg, Karen. “The Rise of the Projected Painting: 5 Artists Who Fuse Canvases and Circuitry.” Artspace, 2 Oct. 2015, https://www.artspace.com/magazine/interviews_features/on_trend/5-artists-who-fuse-painting-and-projection-53154. Stephens, Chuck. “Exploded View: Malcolm Le Grice's Berlin Horse.” Cinema Scope, https://cinema-scope.com/cinema-scope-magazine/exploded-view-malcolm-le-grices-berlin-horse/. Youngblood, Gene. Expanded Cinema. First ed., P. Dutton & Co. Inc., 1970, http://www.vasulka.org/Kitchen/PDF_ExpandedCinema/book.pdf. [[Cultural Context]] [[Influences]] [[Legacy]] [[Malcolm Le Grice]]