The invention of photography unveiled the dream of fixing time and memory. The cinema offered a new experience to viewers but also new ways for image-makers to interrogate the medium of photography through experimentation. Beginning with a selection of Lumière Brothers shorts, made at the dawn of the 20th Century, this programme compares early industrial and mid-century modernist investigations with moving image.

Sortie d'Usine Lumière à Lyon, Lumière Brothers, 1895, 1 min, B/W, Digital
Repas de Bébé, Lumière Brothers, 1896, 1 min, B/W, Digital
Démolition d'un Mur, Lumière Brothers, 1896, 1 min, B/W, Digital
Le Jardinier et le Petit Espiègle, Lumière Brothers, 1895, 1 min, B/W, Digital
Arrivée des Congressistes à Neuville-sur-Saone, Lumière Brothers, 1895, 1 min, B/W, Digital
Arrivée d'un Train en Gare à la Ciotat, Lumière Brothers, 1895, 1 min, B/W, Digital
Partie de Cartes, Lumière Brothers, 1895, 1 min, B/W, Digital
Barque Sortant du Port, Lumière Brothers, 1895, 1 min, B/W, Digital
Départ de Jérusalem en chemin de fer, Lumière Brothers, 1897, 1 min, B/W, Digital
Niagara, les chutes, Lumière Brothers, 1897, 1 min, B/W, Digital
As Seen Through a Telescope, George Albert Smith, 1900, 1 min, B/W, Digital

Room (Double Take)
Peter Gidal
1967 | 10 min | Colour | 16mm

A hand-held camera zooms in and out as it films the objects in a room. The same sequence is presented twice. “In Room, [Gidal] makes deliberate use of the complete repetition of a whole film […] The camera’s movement is slow and in close up on the objects it passes, causing the viewer to mentally search ahead of its motion, particularly in the repeat.” – Malcolm Le Grice

(nostalgia)
Hollis Frampton
1971 | 36 min | B/W | 16mm

Hollis Frampton's film exposes the fragility of cinema, marking a critical moment in art history when photography meets filmmaking. “In his account of an artist’s transformation from photographer to filmmaker, Frampton burns photographs he had taken and selected from his past along with one found photograph. A calm voice tells a story about an image, but the story is about the following image, not the one shown. Confounding comprehension still further, the narration begins and ends during the photograph's combustion; smoke and ashes get in our eyes while we are trying to make sense of the image and the narration – trying to remember the story that fits the image, trying to remember the image that fits the story... Frampton's (nostalgia) is a formal masterpiece” – Rachel Moore

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Part of pic.london festival 2017