Introduction

This introduction, rather than previewing each chapter or section in the volume, offers a broad statement of the book’s aims and an articulation of what “experimental cinema” means in the first place, especially given the plethora of alternative moving image forms to which is might be historically related. The authors assert that experimental cinema is a mode of cinematic practice or, more simply, a film culture, defined as much by characteristic approaches to production, distribution, and exhibition as by aesthetic traits, and embodying an ethos that is both artistic and political. Experimental cinema, then, identifies an artistic tradition and cluster of values that have remained remarkably consistent despite historical change and the heterogeneity of experimental films and videos. The introduction also addresses experimental cinema’s ongoing commitment to analog film and notions of medium specificity, even as filmmakers utilize digital filmmaking technology more and more. Finally, it identifies three major themes that crisscross the six sections of the book. The first is the ongoing attention to aesthetic form and the close analysis thereof, which links much contemporary work in the field to classical theoretical writings from the silent era onwards. The second is the continued investment in the materiality of cinematic media and the linking of this materiality with larger artistic and political values. The third is an emphasis on bodies human and non-human and upon the environment, a theme that recurs with much urgency across the book.