Curtis, D. (2007) A history of artists’ film and video in Britain. British film institute.
Flipping through the fragments of this book is like gently pushing open a door leading to another time and space. Behind the door is not the familiar film history composed of grand narratives and exquisite visuals, but a river formed by countless glimmering film segments. Standing quietly by the river, I learned for the first time that beyond the thunderous roar of mainstream films, there is such a group of people who, so persistently and even clumsily, use light and shadow and machinery to have a dialogue with time, scenery and themselves.
What touched my heart the most was not a specific technique or school, but a spirit – a spirit of “dancing within limitations”. The artists in the book have no huge funds, no ready-made market, and even a stable screening space is a luxury. Their creative tools were borrowed, modified, or even hammered out of wood by themselves. To save a few feet of film, they directly scratched and drew on the film by hand. To catch the change of a gust of wind, they carried heavy machines and camped on the mountain top for a whole week. These behaviors, in today’s digital age where there is unlimited copying and instant editing, seem almost like a kind of “ascetic practice”. But in this seemingly inconvenient “ascetic practice”, what I witnessed was an ultimate state of concentration and freedom. Their freedom does not stem from the abundance of resources, but from their absolute loyalty to creation itself. They did not wait for a perfect and recognized stage, but instead, in the basement bookstore, in the abandoned factory building, and in their own attic, they lit up that beam of light that belonged to them with their own hands.
This book also made me rethink what true watching is. Those landscape films are no longer about showcasing a famous scenic spot, but rather a private dialogue with time and light. When William Laban recorded the color changes of a river from morning till night at intervals of frames, what he was documenting was no longer the scenery, but the texture and temperature of time itself. This reminds me of the countless mornings and evenings I missed when I was in a hurry. We have consumed too many images endowed with meaning, yet almost forgotten how to purely and aimlessly “watch” the flow of a cloud or the growth of a shadow. What the artists have taught me is to rediscover the texture of this world with a kind of almost innocent curiosity.
Finally, when I read about female and black artists building their own distribution networks to justify their history, what I felt was a gentle yet tenacious force. Instead of simply complaining about being excluded from mainstream history, they personally collected, sorted out and screened their works, building their own memory palaces with their own works. History is not a cold monument written by others, but a piece of soil that can be cultivated and sown with one’s own hands.
Closing the book, those glimmers of light that flickered in the crevices of history seemed to shine into my reality as well. It reminds me that the significance of creation often does not lie in building a magnificent palace, but in sincerely planting a seed wherever possible and patiently guarding it to sprout. The river formed by the faint light still flows to this day.
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NOTE ：
History and Institutions
Artists
- 1920s–30s: Early experimental film culture emerged through The Film Society and little magazines like Close Up and Film Art.
- Post-war to 1960s: International festivals (e.g., Knokke Experimental Film Festival) fostered exchange; the Free Cinema movement arose.
- 1960s–70s: The London Filmmakers Co-op (LFMC) became a central hub for production, screening, and distribution.
- 1970s onward: Video art gained prominence with organizations like London Video Arts (LVA); artists began creating installations and multi-screen works for galleries.
- 1990s: Digital technology became widespread; commercial galleries started collecting video works; the young British artists (yBa) movement rose.
Institutions and Funding
- Sponsored Films: In the 1930s–40s, artists found opportunities through government units like the GPO Film Unit.
- Archives and Collections: Institutions like the BFI and MoMA began collecting experimental film.
- Arts Council and Public Funding: The Arts Council of Great Britain started funding artists’ film and video from the 1970s.
- Television and Broadcasting: Channel 4 became a key funder and broadcaster from the 1980s.
Forms and Themes
Film and Fine Art
- The Camera as Tool: Artists reconsidered cinematic mechanisms, exploring early technologies like shadow play and mechanical projection.
- Landscape, Portrait, Still Life: Traditional painting subjects were revisited through film.
- Abstraction and Animation: From Len Lye’s hand-painted films to digital abstraction.
- Sculptors’ Films: Artists like Tony Hill created mechanical and light-based installations.
Narrative: Fiction, Documentary, Polemic
- Pre-war Amateurs and Documentarists: The Grierson documentary movement.
- Post-war Revival: Free Cinema, social realism, and political filmmaking.
- Identity Politics: The rise of feminist, queer, and Black film and video.
Expanded Cinema and Video Art
- Film as Film: Structural/materialist film explored the medium’s properties.
- Conceptual Art and Early Installations: Immersive works like those by Jeffrey Shaw.
- Video Art and Television: Interventions into broadcast TV, e.g., David Hall’s TV Interruptions.
Politics and Identity
- Gender, race, and sexuality became central themes as artists used moving images to examine power and personal experience.
Historical Trends
- From Margin to Mainstream: Artists’ film moved from film societies and art schools into galleries, museums, and international exhibitions.
- Technology as Driver: Shifts from 16mm film to portable video, digital editing, projection, and interactive installations.
- Institutional Innovation: Self-organization, cooperative models, public funding, and television partnerships enabled production.
- The Turn to Identity: From the 1980s, political and identity-based themes became central to experimental moving-image work.
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