Analogue Filmmaking

About

Analogue film records images chemically, on a strip of light-sensitive celluloid that must be developed, cut and projected. Artists have worked in 35mm, the lighter 16mm and Super 8, often treating the material itself as the subject. Maya Deren's Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) set a pattern for low-budget personal cinema; Stan Brakhage pressed moth wings between strips of tape to make Mothlight (1963); Malcolm Le Grice and the London Film-Makers' Co-operative printed and processed footage by hand to lay bare how cinema works.

When labs closed and cinemas converted to digital projection in the early 21st century, choosing film became a statement. Tacita Dean's FILM (2011) was conceived as a plea for the medium's survival. On screen, analogue gives itself away through shifting grain, flicker, dust, scratches and a slight weave of the image; in the room, through the whirr of the projector.