Expanded Cinema

"Expanded cinema identifies a film and video practice which activates the live context of watching, transforming cinema's historical and cultural architectures of reception into sites of cinematic experience that are heterogeneous, performative and non determined"

Expanded cinema was used by Stan Vanderbeek in the 1960's

A pioneer in the development of experimental film and live-action animation techniques, Stan Vanderbeek was a visonary of avant-garde and expanded cinema. Advocating a utopian fusion of art and technology, he produced theatrical, multimedia experiments that include projection systems, dancem planetarium events and the exploration of early computer graphics and image-processing systems.

Works:

Science Friction-

His early work (1955-1965) was based on cutting images from magazines and books thus creating dream-like pieces. He would animate paintings, drawings and collages thereby creating a random contrast in the piece of work.

Poem field -

Poem field is the name of a series of 8 computer-generated animations by Stan Vanderbeek and Ken Knowlton in 1964-1967. The animations were programmed in a Language called Beflix (short for "Bell Flicks"), which was developed by knowlton.

Other Examples of Expanded Cinema:

British experimental novelist, poet, critic, and filmmaker B.S. Johnson, author of Alberto Angelo (1964) and House Mother Normal (1971) made several films in his brief ten year career. Fat Man on a Beach, finished just before his suicide at age 40, starts with Johnson's unique brand of the absurd and comic, and ends with him walking directly into the sea:

“A simple but audacious idea was proposed: Johnson should revisit his beloved Lleyn penninsula [setting of Johnson's first novel, Travelling People (1963)] and he should make a film about it. The format would be quite straightforward: forty minutes of Johnson sitting on his favourite beach, Porth Ceriad, and talking directly to camera about anything that happened to come into his head" Jonathan Coe, Like a Fiery Elephant: The Story of B.S. Johnson

Life with Expanded Cinema:

BAFTA award winning sound editor, film and video maker, artist, writer and photographer, JOHN CRUMPTON on his blog gives a detailed account of how expanded cinema was a part of his life and explains the journey in depth.

http://www.johncrumpton.co.uk/page20.htm

After looking at the history and understanding the concept of expanded cinema I think I realise the potential of the same and would like use this in the near future.