FILMS BEGET FILMS

22-23 November 2002
Royal College of Art


R Buckminster Fuller presents his 'Dymaxion' house, 1929,
from The Dilapidated Dwelling
(Patrick Keiller, 2000, 78mins, Iluminations Television for Channel4)

The practice of compilation film and film citation has a long history in cinema that is often overlooked. This event intends to draw attention to the significance of this tradition for film history, film aesthetics and for new ways of thinking about the power of history and images.

This event takes its name from Jay Leyda's Films Beget Films (1964) which surveyed the use of archival footage until then. Found footage and archive material today feature prominently in a range of contexts, from the avant-garde to advertising. Gallery artists such as Douglas Gordon and Matthias Muller explore historic footage for new meaning, while filmmakers like Ken Jacobs, Martin Arnold and Bruce Conner re-cut early and archive material to find new forms and rhythms.

Archivists too have taken to making films from this seductive material, Peter Delpeut's Lyrical Nitrate (1994) for example. The seductiveness of the archive itself was the subject of Bill Morrison's Film of Her (1997) and his recent Decasia.

The event included contributions from Patrick Keiller, AL Rees, Rachel Moore, Michael Witt and Laura Mulvey and attracted an audience of artists, curators and historians as well as students of film and related media.

PROGRAMME

Friday, 22 November 2002
6:00	Introduction by Laura Mulvey, Director AHRB Centre for British Film and Television Studies; Professor of Film and Media Studies, Birkbeck, University of London.
6:15	Patrick Keiller, AHRB Fellow in the Creative and Performing Arts, Royal College of Art. The City of the Future 'The City of the Future is a project that sets out to explore contrasts between the familiarity of old city fabric, the strangeness of the past, and the newness of present-day experience. Using archive film of the past century and other documents of urban experience in literature and so on, it will develop a critique of present-day and possible future spatial experience. Its artefacts are anticipated to include a database of selected footage, compilations of archive film for gallery exhibition, and a single screen work with fictional narration, that develops the questions and ideas outlined above.' PK
7:45-9:00	Reception
Saturday, 23 November 2002
10:00	AL Rees, Senior Research Fellow, Royal College of Art. Sampling the Archive: a survey of found footage in Avant-garde film.
11:15	Break
11:30	Screening: Mother Dao the Turtle-like, Vincent Monnikendam 1994.
1:00	Break for Lunch
2:00	Dr. Rachel Moore, Lecturer, Birkbeck, University of London. Re-enchanted Enchantment: watching movies in the movies.
2:45	Screening of an episode from Histoire(s) du Cinéma, Jean-Luc Godard (1988-98), and rare compilation film from France.
3:30	Break
3.45	Dr. Michael Witt, Senior Lecturer in Film and Television Studies, University of Surrey Roehampton The Pillage of the Archives: Histoire(s) du Cinéma and the audio-visual history tradition.
4.45	Round table discussion: Patrick Keiller, AL Rees, Rachel Moore, Michael Witt, chaired by Laura Mulvey.

LECTURE THEATRE ONE
ROYAL COLLEGE OF ART
(JAY MEWS ENTRANCE)
KENSINGTON GORE
LONDON SW7 2EU


Organised in collaboration by: AHRB Centre for British Film and Television Studies; Birkbeck, University of London and The Research Methods Course, Royal College of Art.



For more information about Films Beget Films contact