Artwork > 1995-2000

BOOKLETS

The booklets are given away at shows as people enter, figuring both as a programme of what's showing on that particular night and a container of various other informations including: an editorial, rants, publicity for kindred events, details of forthcoming shows, calls for work, commentaries on related cultural shifts etc. The tone of the booklet is invariably playful and is an assemblage of cut-and-paste imagery put together at a special Booklet Meeting run a couple of days before each show. Attendance at these meetings varies but is often a half-dozen or so.

Despite the obvious shifts in technology since the booklet's original inception in the early nineties, and the fact that all the group members ARE quite capable of using a computer, scanner etc. the cut & paste format has been preserved. Why? Well, there are a lot of cultural, historical & aesthetic reasons for maintaining this form, but primarily it seems to survive due to its social aspect. Cutting out images, playing them off against one another, working out new juxtapositions etc. is a very inclusive DIY approach to image making - everyone can do it - which fits right in with the group's ethos. Also it's a fun thing to do: sitting round a table assembling these a couple of nights before a show gives us the chance to chat informally, laugh at each other's image making antics, and discuss the show to come.

Looking back at the booklets included in this exhibition (about 50 of which are housed in the Study Collection) I find them the most evocative of the archived materials. How so? Well, despite the fact that the Exploding Cinema has always figured primarily as a screening initiative - i.e. projecting people's recordings of imagery + sound upon videotape and celluloid - the actual 'feel' of the shows has very much been that of a live event, incorporating many voices, attitudes and styles. There's a 'controlled chaos' at work in the booklets which reflects the energies and sense of direction that make each show possible.

Booklet covers (from left to right, top to bottom):

Exploding Seeneema 12/3/98 (DR)
Appeasing the Super 8 God 29/5/97 (PT)
Celluloid Myths 25/3/2000 (PT)
Moron's Ecstasy 7/6/95 (DR)

 

 

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