light movement: Light Movement 17: Jeff Keen

Light Movement 17.
Sunday 8th Jan, 2017, Spektrum Berlin, screening 8pm
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Jeff Keen

Marvo Movie, 1967

PROGRAM

Cineblatz, 1967, 16mm, 3 mins, colour, sound
Marvo Movie, 1967, 16mm, 5 mins, colour, sound
Rayday Film, 1968-70/1976, 16mm, 13 mins, colour, sound
The Cartoon Theatre of Dr Gaz, 1976-79, 16mm, 14 mins, colour, sound

Pulversised Cinema, 1990s, super 8, 10 mins, colour, silent
Artwar Fallout + Artwar 3 (twin-screen), 1992-93(left)/1995(right), super 8, 10 mins, colour, sound

total time 55 mins

*(please note all films are shown digitally for this screening)*

Marvo Movie, 1967

"Jeff Keen was a poet, artist and pioneering experimental film-maker, working across and combining media and genres to forge his singular, subversive and highly influential perspective. He was an important contributor to the countercultural scene in Britain, participating in literary happenings and other events at the renowned ‘Better Books’ on Charing Cross Road, as well as co-founding the London Film-makers Co-op (now merged with London Video Arts to form LUX). However, his resolutely individual take on the medium’s cross-generic possibilities always remained on the fringes of the purely formalist avant-garde canon of experimental film. In Keen’s films, innovative techniques of film construction and transmission (including collage, animation, found footage, superimposed and hand-altered film stock, and multiple screen projections) are explored within the context of a diverse array of influences. These range from archetypal mythologies and the art historical movements of surrealism and romanticism to popular contemporary culture, particularly comic books and Hollywood B-movies, resulting in works which powerfully describe the frenetic, global world of post-war Western society. Defying the boundaries of genre and category, Keen’s art bears testament to the presence of an extraordinary creative universe and of a highly perceptive, radical voice contributing to the narratives of film and twentieth century art history. " (Hales Gallery)