This Living Hand "La cmara cinematogrfica capta los trazos de luz y los grava en medallones de plata. Yo prefiero la agradable compaa de un proyector cinematogrfico que, paradjicamente, es capaz de transubstanciar a una serie de criaturas muertas y hacer que revivan en las mentes de los vivos. Mis Projection Performances son una llamada para presenciar las acciones discretas y al mismo tiempo simultneas de luz obturada a travs del cuerpo del film y del glissando de sonido ptico a lo largo de su sustrato sombreado. Tengo la suerte de compartir la fascinante reciprocidad de esta mquina con nuestros sentidos. Sin embargo, el hecho de que todo el mundo se halle en este lado del plano de la imagen hace que la posibilidad de perder el control sea algo real. La sala, el proyector, el proyeccionista, la pantalla, el pblico de fibras nerviosas y todas las suposiciones cinemticas entran en accin al mismo tiempo. Paramis performances de proyeccin, el peligro es indispensable. Esta viva mano, aqu la tenis, la tiendo hacia vosotros."Bruce McClure

Artista/s: Bruce McClure

#Info Taller 2007/09/18 - 2007/09/20 | Arteleku

BRUCE McCLURE: El proyector de 16mm como herramienta creativa Parte-hartzaileak etiketak: Soinudun artea, Audiolab, Soinua Este taller se plantea como una oportunidad nica para artistas y realizadores de cine para aprender sobre el uso del proyector cinematogrfico como medio creativo Horario: 16:00-19:00 (excepto el dia 20, 11:00-14:00)Invitado: Bruce McClure

Este taller se plantea como una oportunidad nica para artistas y realizadores de cine para aprender sobre el uso del proyector cinematogrfico como medio creativo. Comenzando con una introduccin a la multitud de mtodos diferentes que muchos artistas han investigado en torno a las posibilidades creativas de la proyeccin, este taller mostrar las formas en las que McClure crea actuaciones expansivas e hipnticas con proyectores de 16mm modificados. Los participantes tendrn la oportunidad de tener un proyector de 16mm en la mano, aprender como funciona y experimentar con varias ideas. Una gran oportunidad para creadoresque desconocen o conocen ligeramente la historia del vdeo y el cine artstico, as como para aquellos que quieran aprender ms sobre las posibilidades conceptuales y tcnicas del film.

El cineasta Bruce McClure crea cosas increbles con proyectores de cine. Utilizando pequeas piezas de metal perforadas, loops de films, proyectores modificados y otros arreglos y modificaciones, McClure genera espectaculares abstracciones de luz y oscuridad, patrones y texturas parecidas a las pinturas de Mark Rothko, curiosas sombras y perfiles y otros muchos efectos visuales fantasmagricos, tan placenteros para el ojo como sugestivos para lamente. Su trabajo ha sido proyectado en infinidad de lugares como el Withney Biennial, London Film Festival, Walter Reade Theater del Lincoln Center, Ann Arbor Film Festival y otros espacios y festivales de Norteamrica y Europa.

Estos eventos fueron parte de la programacin del 8 festival de otras msicas ERTZ.

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Audiolab Archivo

BRUCE McCLURE: El proyector de 16mm como herramienta creativa

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SXP2011: Bruce McClure23 Mar 10| art | cinema | festivals | instruments | liveeng cas eng cas B r u c e M c C l u r e

The rapture (Arrebato) was that temporal abstraction of the lived space. How much time could you spend looking at it? [] you were in ecstasy, carried away. At Sonic Acts lectures there were several speakers who stated that our perception of space is based mainly in our measure of time. We could use as an example the film The Powers of Ten by Charles y Ray Eames.The rapture (Arrebato) is a good term for describing the immersion in a performance by Bruce McClure. When the eyes get dry and the ears hurt the public is still vampirized in front of that analogue fantasy. The analogue devices are the base of an extreme synaesthesia in which the sound of the manipulated projectors is transformed in noise using distortion pedals, in a long and overwhelming climax. The 16mm projector is used as a creative tool that transforms the lights and shadows in sound. The film is an excuse for a live performance in which the film-maker is among the public. The reproducibility of cinema exchanges itself for the immediacy and the ephemeral of sound. In comparison to some pieces (sculptures or installations) which try to visualize the sound, the projector performances by McClure make the image audible.The sound, the noise, is transformed with regard to the understanding and knowledge of the image, destroying, consciously or not, a tradition in which the image, through the writing or its other artistic disciplines, tended to set the meaning of sound and music. Obviously, this approach to the audiovisual, this producer role among the public and this concern about the peoples experience, transform McClures work in an immersive process that takes place in a common time and space to the maker and the

receptor, breaking the dynamics of film exhibition and the role of the director as an author detached from his public. In fact, McClure does not need to shoot anything for his projector performances, because the emulsion of the frames also produces sound.

SCOPE: Perhaps second only to immersive, the adjective most used to describe your work is intense. No doubt any sustained flicker is intense, but the high decibel sound that you create can be extremely intimidating. Very visceral. Have you seen extreme reactions to your work?McCLURE: Extreme reactionshow could I call them extreme? Reactions are many. Usually the suffering party is out of the room before I have any awareness. Somehow people endure the diesel siren and rotary flash of the firetruck. They put their fingers in their ears. Others travel on errands with earplugs or add another blanket with smorgasbord music. I have tried binoculars, monocular, and waving my fingers in front of my eyes at speeds approximating the flicker of the projector shutter. Its all torture, whether you elect to participate or are involuntarily subjected to it. To me, its an experience of nature like a rainy day or being overwhelmed by vertigo in an assault of snow blindness.

B r u c e M c C l u r e

El Arrebato era aquella abstraccin temporal del espacio vivido. Cuanto tiempo podaspasar mirando? [] estabas en pleno xtasis, arrebatado. Durante las conferencias del Sonic Acts XIII, ms de un ponente expuso que nuestra percepcin del espacio se basa en gran medida en nuestra medida del tiempo. Sirva como ancdota explicativa la pelcula The Powers of Ten de Charles y Ray Eames.Hay pocas expresiones ms acertadas que el Arrebato para describir la inmersin en una actuacin de Bruce McClure. Cuando los ojos se resecan y los odos comienzan a doler, el espectador sigue vampirizado frente a esa fantasa analgica. As lo analgicose presenta como base de una sinestesia extrema, donde el sonido de sus proyectores manipulados es transformado en ruido por medio de pedales de distorsin, en un clmax largo e inaprensible. El proyector de 16mm se hace herramienta creativa para hacer audible la luz y la sombra, mientras que la pelcula usada se convierte en excusade una actuacin en directo, en la que el cineasta se sita entre el pblico. As el elemento de reproductibilidad del cine se intercambia por lo inmediato y efmero del medio sonoro y en oposicin a algunas manifestaciones que tratan de visualizar el sonido (esculturas o instalaciones) las proyector performances de McClure hacen audible la imagen.En este sentido el sonido, el ruido, se transforma en medio de comprensin y conocimiento de la imagen, destruyendo, queriendo o sin querer, una tradicin en la que la imagen, mediante la escritura o sus otros modos de arte, tenda a fijar el sentidodel sonido y la msica.Evidentemente, este modo de usar lo audiovisual, esta posicin de productor entre el pblico y esta preocupacin por la experiencia de la gente, hacen de la obra de McClure un proceso inmersivo desarrollado en un espacio y un tiempo comn al realizador y el receptor, rompiendo tambin la dinmica de exhibicin cinematogrfica y el papel del director como creador separado de su pblico. De

hecho, McClure ni siquiera necesita rodar para realizar sus projector performances, porque aquellos fotogramas emulsionados producen tambin sonido.

SCOPE: Quizs despus de inmersivo el adjetivo ms usado para describir tutrabajo es intenso. Cualquier parpadeo de luz sostenido es intenso, pero el volumen del sonido que creas puede ser extremadamente intimidatorio. Muy visceral. Has visto alguna vez reacciones extremas a tus piezas?McCLURE: Reacciones extremas No s si podra llamarlas extremas, pero he visto muchas reacciones. Normalmente los espectadores que sufren abandonan la sala antes de que me d cuenta. La gente soporta las sirenas y losflashes circulares de los camiones de bomberos como puede. Hay personas que se tapan las orejas, otros van con tapones y otros aaden una capa de msica. Yo he probado a usar binoculares y monoculares, a mover los dedos delante de los ojos a la misma velocidad que parpadea el obturador del proyector. Todo es una tortura, tanto si decides participar como si lo haces de manera involuntaria. Yo creo que es una experiencia de la naturaleza, como unda lluvioso o un ataque de vrtigo al sufrir una ceguera pasajera por culpa del resplandor de la nieve.

http://www.cinema-scope.com/cs32/col_picard_mcclure.htmlFilm/Art: Reading Between the Lines with Bruce McClureBy Andra PicardI think an artist is always working with limits, but these limits are extended and discovered. Theres an art of discovering new limits.Robert SmithsonAfter all, wreckage is often more interesting than structure.Bruce McClureBruce McClure is an artist both increasingly known and unknown. His film performances have been featured (and cultishly coveted) in film festivals, galleries, cinematheques, and in various screening programs throughout the US, and in cities such as Rotterdam and Toronto. His name has become, in recent years, common currency in avant-garde circles, yet it takes time and effort to get to know his work, literally and conceptually. You must travel to see it, or if youre lucky, it has to come to a theatre near you. He has twice been featured at the venerable Whitney Biennale, though he has not yet entered its permanent collection as his work poses a bona fide collecting quandary. His pieces are unique, but not in the sense of an object dart, rather as an ephemeral experience. This can be difficult for a museum to grapple with for many reasons, including archiving, storage, display, fear of obsolescence, immeasurable value, and so on. In short, what would they collect and how would they show it?McClure has been called a para-cinema artist, a proto-cinema artist, an expanded-cinema artist, and even a vaudevillian. A practicing architect whose draftsmanship hasled to a fascinating excursion into sound experimentation, McClure, so goes the bio, crossed over into the realm of the proto-cinematic as a consequence of trying to represent the beat of a metronome in time with the ultimate goal of laying down a line

equal to the circumference of the earth at the equator. By recording the tempo and duration of his markings on paper he could calculate the distance traveled and what remained to complete a circumnavigation of the planet. Witnessing him at work, alternating between a bank of projectors and a handmade soundboard, makes this goalseem all the more plausible and, perhaps even attainable. But there is definitely a leap.Just as the contradiction of his burgeoning renown is tempered by his difficult-to-see work, theres another paradox at play. McClures practice engenders both a leap forward and a leap back, to a time of analogue physicality. By using cinemas basic (and mechanical) elements of light, darkness, and sound, he is forging a new language. Its not photographic, neither is it particularly cinematic (which we are all guilty of ascribing to the realm of the photographic). Is it a form of sculpture or audio-visual composition? Weve seen the sculptural phase of moving-image art, a seminal shift that has radicalized the gallery spacepieces by Anthony McCall, Bruce Nauman, Paul Sharrits, et al., built up through the display of technical apparatuses, and the three-dimensional girth of projected light or talking monitors. If light is McClures primary visual tool and the sonically amplified sprocket hole is his ultimate sound instrument, what, then, do we call his art? McClures work is most commonly referred to as modified projector performance, and instrument analogies are not far-flung. The projector is played, experimented withbefore and during performances. McClure makes use of metal plates fitted into the film shoe assembly, ink dyes sneezed onto clear leader, sound-effect pedals, a handmade black screen, and other such adornments in his interference into the normative course of film projection. Theres something baroque about his methods, yet they are strangely minimal at the same time, as if channeling the seriality of the 60s, whether it be Sol Lewitt or the under-explored Hanne Darboven. Hes right when he says that we (critics, curators, artists, human beings) look for comparisons to provide structure as an escape from the abyss. Through its singularity, innovation and zealous rigour, McClures work elicits searching responses; they are, in a sense, testaments to his efforts and outcomes. Or maybe they result from the primeval sounds and flickering light that engulf the audience. A visceral experience transcends words, as we know, but can we help grasping for language?Hes certainly not alone in the field of projector performance. Duo Sandra Gibson andLuis Recoder enjoy an international following and are in the Whitneys collection. McClures permutations seem stricter, as if working from a spiders stratagem, perhaps eluding certain institutional successes. I hesitate to say more, as I came to his work rather late, and have only seen/heard him perform a memorable three times. He blew my mind on each occasion. Rather than delving deep into aporia, McClure savedme by kindly agreeing to indulge the following questions. It may help to read betweenthe lines. CINEMA SCOPE: Youve been variously described as a proto-cinema artist, a para-cinema artist, a projector performer, an expanded cinema artist. What best describes what you do? Do you consider yourself a filmmaker or an artist, both, a performer, or a combination thereof?BRUCE McCLURE: I usually refer to what I do as projection performance. It describes what happens as a part of a larger theatrical experience witnessed by a seated audience poised to exit but with only a few leaving. I dont consider myself a filmmaker and often point out that Kodak or some other industrial giant makes the film. I will admit to using film, but only after having pointed out that I avoided it for several years and making some reference to the small quantities I use on any occasion.I still have a resistance to using the a----t word because it creates so many

expectations in those who hear it. Performer is a word I tend to favour. I often have in mind the person who plays cymbals, drum, a horn or some assembly of instrumentation while struggling to keep everything moving for a gathering who stopsto watch. The honking feature flaps its wings in a cloud of down.SCOPE: As a creator of cinema experiences rather than physical films, have you devised a personal archiving system? Do you ever perform works from years back?McCLURE: I use boxes and plastic bags as my archiving system and what seem to be precise notes to the future. In label boxes I store materials and try to identify the original film loop sources to distinguish them from prints. I do this because I look forward to the opportunity to exhume the remains, but in the end its always like trying to decipher last months bills. Recent work constantly brings me to a retracing of worn paths causing me to note that I can never put my foot in it the same way.

SCOPE: Your latest work, such as Evertwo CircumflicksrentPage 298, seem increasingly pared down in terms of image and the information that is on the filmstrip.Are you consciously following a certain trajectory, such as a more refined, stripped down audio-visual language?McCLURE: Earlier I liked the idea of accumulating so much on the screen that it would be difficult to see what I was doing, or at least creating a situation in which only turning the thing off would amount to real change. Now for the sake of a swing Im heading the other way, out of necessity. First there was the question, How many projectors do I need? I answered, Four, one for each side of the rectangle. Now Imanswering the same question with a breeze from behind by saying, Two, one for eacheye and one for each ear. Evertwo, the optical glow hankie waves, and the second glow is hearing signals. SCOPE: How do you choose your enigmatic titles? Their application can sometimes be compellingly oblique.McCLURE: Thanks! Most often I turn to my bookshelves to find combinations of words that seem to suit some aspect of a work Im looking to title. When Im looking, finding comes along as a happy companion, its services intricate and not humourless. Most recently Ive decided to use my concordance on Finnegans Wake, and looking up flicker found Evertwo Circumflicksrent on page 298. I included the page numberto really dust the trail marker clean, sending attention off.SCOPE: Do you mean for your titles to provide a fiction (or a layer of fiction) for the work, one that invariably, or perhaps arguably, stems from any abstraction during reception?McCLURE: Ill say and maybe youre saying that abstraction is maybe the first fiction and I add to that another no less vital and real in the compost heap beyond the garden wall. Abstract is out of our world and I cant understand that, although on certain days theres an odour and it sure does make the tomatoes grow! The everything is zippered up in the brain, measurable and concrete, and although difficultto peg down I enjoy tracing over the convolutions.SCOPE: Equally engrossing and sometimes enigmatic are the film descriptionsyou write to accompany the works. Are these also performative to a degree?McCLURE: I often work as hard on these film treatments as I do on the performances themselves. They partake of the promise of a future space hushed and inneed of displacement. The written notes are intended to occupy before or as the lights come down when everything is thrown against the wall. Held in the hands, read at close quarters, the words are on the pagethe lights down only afterimages of my sufferings and squeals of joya spectacle in a succession of spectacles.

SCOPE: Perhaps second only to immersive, the adjective most used to describe your work is intense. No doubt any sustained flicker is intense, but the high decibel sound that you create can be extremely intimidating. Very visceral. Have you had extreme reactions to your works?McCLURE: Extreme reactionshow could I call them extreme? Reactions are many. Usually the suffering party is out of the room before I have any awareness. Somehow people endure the diesel siren and rotary flash of the fire truck. They put their fingers in their ears. Others travel on errands with earplugs or add another blanket with smorgasbord music. I have tried binoculars, monocular, and waving my fingers in front of my eyes at speeds approximating the flicker of the projector shutter. Its all torture, whether you elect to participate or are involuntarily subjected to it. To me, its an experience of nature like a rainy day or being overwhelmed by vertigo in an assaultof snow blindness.

SCOPE: Was your decision to go camera-less a polemical one? When did this transition occur?McCLURE: Id say that the polemics came after I identified that operating a camera was expensive and had too many moving parts. It was probably around 1994, and there were pictures everywhere so I didnt buy a camera choosing to use slug. Slug is exposed footage thats used for its sprocket holes as a place keeper during editing. It had a lot of old television programs on it with a scratch down the middle. Then there was clear leader, and you could build up your own emulsiontime consuming and the projector could just eat it up feet at a time. Multiple projections in bars and factorypartiesthe projector was king. Then the purchase of a 16mm viewfinder Bolex in 1997, or so, that I used for some things, but then set aside to return to doing it my way, thinking that one would get lost in the framing of a picture, and perhaps it would be better to work with the projector to get rid of the frame. Abandon the camera except the Super 8 altar.SCOPE: How much of your work relies on intuition versus variations of an equation? From how youve spoken about your work, it seems as though you engage variables of a formula, such as seriality, for example.McCLURE: The primordial soup, amino acids, and whatnots globing together in an atmosphere with lightening bolts and you have it! Ive isolated certain variables just tohave a flotation device to cling onto. Sometimes Ill let it slip and plunge into the darkness with the hope of coming up with some hideous sea creature that will grow onme. All you really need to do is stay afloat and keep paddling across the surface and youll run across something that has two heads that cannot be resolved until it turns and you see that they share the same body that has pretty feathers. The equation is in the theatre, as are the variables. Seriality is something that I think I only dally with.SCOPE: Your work has been compared to Sol Lewitt, Anthony McCall, Marcel Duchamp, John Cage. Not a bad provenance if you believe in it. Does this ring true?McCLURE: I wonder who was making these comparisons. Im happy with these associations but know too that we tend to grasp onto things by the protuberances that are most convenient. I have been variously interested in all of their work for the past 30 years or so, and always look forward to seeing some version of McCalls work.SCOPE: Morgan Fisher has said that he does not edit, he constructs. Would you say that you also construct, or, rather, compose? Your interest in sound seems to predate your interest in film. Can you tell me how or where the two met for you?McCLURE: I like the verb I construct, etc Not compose since I cant write music, and the scores I leave behind are metal plates, projectors, and some film with

patterns integral factors 1-24. Materials for a written scoresome kind of writing. Ive measured it and its 24 frames between the optical axis and the light axis of the optical sound systemactually they tell me that the industry standard is 26. No matter, Ive measured it as best as I could and its 24. Standard stoppages. Sound and film came together in the 16mm film projector!SCOPE: Do you have any formal training in music? McCLURE: Some, when I was learning that I had no aptitude. SCOPE: Do you work with a metronome? McCLURE: Yes, I have four, three with a swing, one electronic. SCOPE: Watching the beam can be a beautiful experience. Anthony McCalls Line Describing a Cone (1973) is a perfect example of this sublime magic, albeit one transposed from the cinema into a gallery space. Would you agree that your work also privileges the projectors light beam?McCLURE: It privileges the projectors glassy face. Looking at the aperture onto the lighthouse sight patterned in time. The beams are there, too, but not so modulated in an instance of light and dark, but as instances of light and not.SCOPE: Is there a best seat in the house for your performances? Ive noticed that audience members, myself included, alternate from watching the screen and craning their necks around to watch you at work.McCLURE: Id say wherever youre comfortable. This might change once the thing gets going but feel free to move away from the speakers or closer or turn the rectangle, if there is one, into a squashed trapezoid.

http://www.brooklynrail.org/2006/07/film/bruce-mcclure-with-brian-frye

Bruce McClure with Brian Fryeby Brian Frye

Bruce McClure doesnt make films, he performs them. Most movies are frozen on celluloid or written on videotape. McClures dont exist until he creates them in the theater. Twirling knobs, flipping switches, and adjusting lenses, he coaxes a bank of whirring projectors into producing images impossible to record: moire patterns dancing in mid-air, a glowing orb rising from the surface of the screen, prismatic bursts flashing about the room. Based in Williamsburg, McClure is an architect by training, who started making films several years ago. Since then, hes encountered remarkable success, appearing in the 2002 and 2004 Whitney Biennial, and presentingfilm performances across the United States and internationally, including in Canada, Scotland, Italy, Japan, and Latvia.Brian Frye (Rail): Can you describe what your films look like, or how you see them, and how that relates to what you do when you make them? I recently saw a film performance of yours using four modified projectors running simultaneously with loops or continuous reels of film, creating different kinds of patterns on the screen.

McClure: I think youre referring to Christmas Tree Stand, which uses four modified projectors. The projectors are modified in the sense that I have control over the intensity of the bulbs and I insert metal plates in the machines. The metal plates are stuck into the film shoe assembly and each has a hole punched through it. The reason I use these holes is that it makes a surprise on the screen, setting off light as an object in the room. The light is no longer framed by a familiar rectangle, but fights back. So what youre looking at when youre sitting in the room is light seen through holes truncated and superimposed. In addition to the holes we also spend some time lookingat light as it is filtered through metal screens and oriented in the circle holes at variousdegrees: 90, 75, 60, and 45 degrees. The angles are equal intervals between 90 and zero, and should be re-examined. What happens is flashing lights with the grids result in an animation effect similar to a marquee, flashing lights separated by a certain distance and of a certain frequency that appear to be moving. The succession of positions on the marquee makes for the impression of motion. None of the lights are really moving. Theyre just flashing, and the eyewhich is slowgives the brain a ride.Rail: And the various ways that youve altered the projectors and the screens through which youre projecting the light and the film enable you to create the visual effects ultimately perceived by the audience?McClure: Right. One of the main ones is the sense of apparent motion. You get this feeling as youre watching the gridded light squares that they are rotating, when the main things that are turning are the shutter and the film loop. A big component for me now is sound, as presented by the optical track. The flicker loops create a pattern of beats. In the case of Christmas Tree Stand there are four beats, each consisting of three frames that are obscuredblack emulsionand one that lets more light throughclear.Rail: So ideally, what would a spectator of this film see or experience?McClure: A kind of vertigo. Its that spinning feeling. Id describe it as visceral, because of the beat, probably. The beat is unrelenting. But as you grow accustomed to it you become aware of overtones in the body bounce of flashing light and ringing. The sensation of motion certainly is important. And not being sure where you are. Id describe it as being a vertiginous feeling. Its an experience similar to one I had with stroboscopes and rotating disks early on when I was trying to avoid the need to buy a camera, or the other tools that I associated with cinema: a projector, film and all of that equipment, splicers and so forth. In order to avoid the need for that kind of equipment, I tried to capitalize on the effect I noticed at a party, where there was a fan and they had a very cheap stroboscope flashing on fan blades. It wasnt attended to. It was just sitting there. No one was changing the speed of the strobe, so it just so happened that sometimes it coincided with the rotational speed of the fan and then drifted, creating various effects.I thought I would exploit that by attaching cardboard disks to a motor that spins at 1200 rpm and then shine stroboscopes onto that surface. Instead of being projected, it was a reflected strobe light off of painted or drawn pictures, sometimes objects. And I found that if you change the speed of the strobe, you arrive at a point where its in sync with the rotational speed. So, if say the rotational speed is 1200 rpm, it would be that same speed, or a factor of it , and motion would appear to stop. Of course, the fan was still spinning at 1200 rpm. It is tempting to stick your finger onto the disk, to find out if its really moving, because it appears to stop altogether. Thats a fairly common phenomenon. Its what happens to the spokes of a wagon as they spin in a western.Rail: So, would you say the stroboscope was the lead into your eventual filmmaking?

McClure: Yeah, it was an attempt to address what might be called a proto-cinematic approach to filmmaking, one that didnt involve a lot of technology, although the stroboscope is a fairly recent, technological thing. But short of doing flipbooks, . . a hyped up, souped up phenokistascope. The technology was more sophisticated than just a rotating disk with slits cut in it that you look at, a painted image on a mirror, you know?Rail: In your most recent films theres very little image on the film itself?McClure: Thats right. It starts with emulsion, then masking some of the areas, and then bleaching. So, instead of adding something to a clear basewhich is what the nk(s)neeze is, I mean India ink blown onto single-perf clear leader. Instead of using the ink to build up a light obstruction, Ive been using black emulsion and erasing parts inorder to create clear light where I want it. Then I bring the footage to the lab and have it printed. Ill make one loop thats six or eight feet long and bring it to the lab and askthem to print out 150 feet of it. So anyway, theres the original splice and an imprint of the splice over and over on the film length. I use tape splices when I make a loop. Then, depending on how I cut out the individual loops for projection from the length, I get a pattern of printed tape splices and then the actual tape splices that hold the looptogether, both of which make different sounds. You get a pattern of sounds of the tape splices and then the pattern of switching emulsion to clear.Rail: So, it sounds as if a lot of the films youve been making come out of experiments youve tried in the studio.McClure: Yeah. I think the decision to stick things into the film shoe assemblytheres the opening closest to the lamp, theres the gate in the film shoe that puts the pressure onto the film, and then theres the metal plate. Having done that, I think it opens all sorts of possibilities that Im kind of exploiting. The film, its kind of an on-off contribution: where theres light, where there isnt, for how long. Then these pieces of metal that I stick in the projectorthe phoenixthey create a series of focalplanesstops along the way. One may focus on the frame, or on the film plane. Whenyou focus on the film you often see a fuzzy boundary. The content of the film is projected onto the screen with a fuzzy boundary. Thats when youre focused on the film plane. Then you can focus on the gate or the aperture thats in the shoe, which gives you a crisp edge. The content of the film consequently becomes blurry. It goes out of focus. Then the pieces of metal, they are a third thing that you can focus on. So you have these different focal planes, any of which can be called in focus. Ordinarily one looks at the grain of the film, or the image on the surface of the frame, or the surface of the film itself. And when these things are in focus, you say, Oh, well the film is in focus. Anything other than that is out of focus. With these metal plates, you start to demarcate positions of focus that didnt exist before.Rail: What about your process in the studio? I came across an article a while ago relating scientists to artists. It distinguished between a Tesla who thinks out his experiments in advance so he knows a great deal about where theyre going to go before he starts, versus an Edison, who works much more by trial and error and whosinterested in tweaking the results as he goes along to see what happens when things get changed in the process. Which one of those best describes how you work?McClure: Theres a certain resistance to science on my part, or empiricism. Edison isnt someone who appeals to me much as a model, honestly. Hes a gangster from East Orange, or something like that. But methodologically . . .Rail: Your films tend to be experiments in perception. Im wondering whether you find it more productive to think about what the effect of a particular change is going to be, or to look for what happens when you make a change.

McClure: I tend to look for as many ways to vary a system. For example, does it matter in the case of four projectors, each with a gate, if each one of them is being blocked by a piece of metal? Imagine the rectangle of a screen: split it in half, take away half of the image in each direction. So you have half of the right, half of the left,half of the top, half of the bottom. What Ive been doing now is re-examining that, pulling back the plates so that its two thirds open, one third covered to the top, right, left and so forth. In addition to that, the frequencies that Im usingbased on the distance between the axis of the lens and the axis of the optical headI measured it and say its 24 frames, thats the basic interval. Then breaking that up into all of its factors, say, one, 24, two, twelve, three, eight, four, six. Ive made loops for each one of those so its 1 clear out of 24, or two clear out of 24, and so on.They are decisions on my part, but I try to find a relationship between the projectors themselves and the film, to unify the two. In this case it is 24 frames that I use as the basic stride, with the various whole number intervals between them. Combining these with the plates that are being moved around to create different figures on the screen, different spaces of light. For example if you have one machine thats got a one to 24 and then another machine thats got a twelve, or every other frame is clear, the super-impositions of those two lights on a space are the kind of variables Im working with. Its a question of recombining different arrangements and seeing the effects they have on the screen.Rail: It sounds as if in the last few years your films have changed from being more quasi-photographicin the sense that a significant part of the image is coming from the film itselfto being more mechanicalin the sense that the image is coming through what happens in the manipulation of the projection situation.McClure: Well, there was a polemical stance. Or at least it tidies things up to say, Ok, Im not going to use a camera. And once youve abandoned the camera, it sort of frees you from having to think about all the things associated with photography andediting and maybe stories per se. I found there was an advantage of using slug, in that it was very cheap and had colors on it with sound tracks. There usually was a soundtrack on the slug material that you could buy at stores. And I found myself very early on wanting to abrade the image using sandpaper or rotary tools like Dremels to gouge into that pre-existing emulsion, in an attempt to obliterate the information on the film. A big breakthrough for me was noticing that if you take the pressure plate or the film shoe outwhatever you want to call it, that thing that keeps the pressure on the film so that the individual sprocket holes are grabbed by a claw in the film, so the frames are advanced successivelyI found it very liberating to take that thing out andjust watch the film go through the projector unimpeded. In this case I used footage that happened to be called The Southern Star, which is this story with Orson Welles in it about the largest diamond in South Africa. Theres an adventure story associated with that. So I called that film The Southern Star Passes Without Pressure because I was screening that film without a pressure plate. But in addition to that I abraded it with a series of markings. What was so beautiful about that movie was that the light would pass through the film and because of the abrasions it would be diffused. Beyond the frame, which was all that was in focus, you had a crisp edge of this rectangle with a kind of curtain of color. Then there would be these patterns of abraded areas that would send the light shooting out into the room, beyond the confines of the frame. I think that particular film is a good example of the spectrum that youre describing. The kind of spectrum that goes from red to blue, but is a concrete, photographic image recorded on film, and yet has more to do with the act of projection.

Rail: In a limited sense, theres a narrative even to the painted films.McClure: Absolutely. Its inescapable, because theres always a frame before it and a frame after it. Or just because the film has a head and a tail and a body, beginning, middle and end. I dont know if thats the kind of narrative that you were describing. Just a rudimentary one. Like a rudimentary nervous system.Rail: Ive noticed frequent digestive metaphors and themes in your writing.McClure: Yes, well thats where -The Southern Star Passes Without Pressure._ I remember Kurt Vonneguts representation of an asshole, or an anus, was to draw something like a spider. Thats where I was thinking the original title of the Southern Star maybe has a double meaning. Not in a critical sense. Im not criticizing the film as though it were shit, but I guess Im saying the digestive track has a need for something to pass through it. In Yiddish one speaks of the the paper of He who has created and the thought of how youre cheating death with each passing. With each excrement one produces, hes cheating death. Which is saying, Im here on the planet, Im here another day! Which was very funny. Im amused by consumption and the things that are associated with consumption, spirals and so forth, unwinding.Rail: On occasion youve performed along with your films.McClure: I usually call attention to myself as being someone in the room. Im alwaysgrateful to have the opportunity to enact something in a room. One of the things Im interested in is being in a room with people who are seeing the work and participating in the ushering in of light, in one way or another. Consequently, I do various kinds of performance. I usually have things to say that dont necessarily have anything to do with the film. Im creating a haze, you could say, to replace that cigarette haze that was once a part of theaters. I like to create a haze of spoken or written words. I tend toenjoy writing something that might be called a film treatment, in preparation for a screening and distributing that in addition to saying a few words that may have something to do with an immediate experience prior to the screening. Its an attempt to cloud in order to get more than one picture. I was thinking of how in a smoky roomyou benefit from the beam, as well as the truncation of the beam of light on a wall or ascreen. And in order to see the beam of light you might throw dust in the air.Rail: People often anticipate the obsolescence of motion picture film. Your film performances seem to argue against obsolescence by moving film back beyond its beginning.McClure: The film is subverted in favor of the light from a projector. So I think it takes on more of a participatory role in projection, rather than being the primary conduit. You might see the film as being perpendicular to the light path. And at one time that perpendicular direction might have been more important than the horizontal beam of light. Im suggesting that the beam of light may be more important than the information thats carried in a perpendicular direction. In any case, its still saying thatthe Cartesian field of projection is still relevant for its uniqueness. The intermittent light of the projector has a certain quality that shouldnt be completely forgotten. One of the things I like is that the mechanisms of the machine create opportunities for intervention that dont exist in video projection. Although I am interested in finding out more about video projectors and the opportunities they afford.Rail: In addition to being a filmmaker, youre also an architect. I dont find it surprising, given that youve brought the film back into the space of the theater. But I wonder whether your training as an architect has colored your filmmaking in any way?McClure: [Laughs]. Im chuckling because Im a bit of an anachronism. In architectural offices today, they use primarily computer drafting tools. I went to

school when people drew on tracing paper, or something they call vellum. But the point I was getting to is that it was a transparent medium, one that could be flipped from right to left or top to bottom. just as film can be. Its a two-dimensional representation of three-dimensional objects. Just as film is two-dimensional and somehow becomes three-dimensional. Say, if you add a time component to it, or start to project it into a room. It can take on a three-dimensional quality because of its existence on the film plane and then on the plane of the screen. One thing about architecture is the resources involved with getting anything built. I think, for the most part, the kind of people who are interested in building office buildings, or buildings for themselves, necessarily have a certain amount of money that theyre willing to invest in the project. And they have to think about it in terms of what might become ofit after theyre through with a particular project and have to fulfill it. That kind of scale is one of the things I dont like about certain kinds of filmmaking and certain aspects of architecture, just the incredible amount of resources that are involved in making some of the commercial films that we see or in order to keep an architectural office going. But its kind of funny that in reading things about architecture recently, Ive become very attracted to this Italian group in the sixties called Super Studio. Even within the field of architecture there are examples of heretics. In the case of Super Studio, they saw a world without products, where the only products would be of mind, that kind of thing. So within the field of architecture there are many differentpoints of view about what its destiny is.Rail: It sounds as though you focus on the public experience of a film in the theater.McClure: I think what youre saying about the experience of a theater is true for me. I do consider a theater to be a beautiful place. In this book that I read about public amusements there was a chapter called The Best Smelling Crowd in the World. To me, thats always emphasized a number of things. One is the attraction of being in a room full of people, where there is a focused attention and whatever kind of dynamicsor energy is involved with this focus of attention. So the best smelling crowd would be any crowd. One where you could smell the people around you. The beauty of people in a room.Theres usually a problem with theater spaces, in that theres often a ticket person whos being paid by the hour and may not take much of an interest in getting the sound as good as you can get it. To them, its a job. And part of their job is trying to create the best situation for something to happen in as possible. But often theres only so much time that they have or are willing to contribute to any one person. Thats one of the drawbacks of performing in a theater space. Another is that youre very limited as to the amount of time that you have to set up and how much time you have to take everything down, because these theaters are like spaceships. A room of that size, that scale, with that amount of infrastructure in terms of what it takes to heat it and run it and so forth, cant really afford to let people take advantage. Your time is limited. Thats part of show business, I guess. So there are some things I dont like about performing. But the monumentality of itthe public nature of itare things I appreciate. As opposed to television.

http://www.redcat.org/event/bruce-mcclureSeptember 29, 2009

Jack H. Skirball Series Locative EnigmaFrameshape of Hard MettlesA Personal Problem: Projection Performances by Bruce McClureBruce McClure doesnt make films, he performs them... Twirling knobs, flipping switches, and adjusting lenses, he coaxes a bank of whirring projectors into producing images impossible to record. The Brooklyn RailAlpert Award-winning film projection artist Bruce McClure has performed extensively in cinematheques, festivals and museums in the United States and abroad, including recent dates with Throbbing Gristle in New York and Chicago. Looking down from the scaffold renders circumstances unfamiliar; perspective is held in suspension as flattened repetition of identical units proceeds with no horizon in sight,he says of his mercurial performances. In an instant, the gate is activated, clearing the way for a measured whoosh forestalled by a tautening rope. During that interval, seemingly eternal scenes flash before ones eyes, cut short by a final whack and bounce of light. The assembly, shrouded by the staging and the loop, is seized by duration as it simultaneously approaches and recedes. Gallows humor is a grim simile for a projection performance, and if this is a joke then where is the punch line? Answer: There is never enough time before an execution.In person: Bruce McClureCurated by Steve Anker.Advanced Curator's NotesFunded in part with generous support from Wendy Keys and Donald Pels. Additional support is provided by The Herb Alpert Foundation. The Alpert Awards in the Arts, a fellowship program that supports innovative practitioners in the fields of dance, film/video, music, theater and visual arts, are administered by CalArts on behalf of The Herb Alpert Foundation.