In and near London during the first half of the seventies, the use of systems, constraints, and procedural processes in filmmaking was explored by a handful of young British filmmakers – Chris Welsby and William Raban in particular, but also others working along these lines, in a less concentrated manner, such as John Smith. This talk by Federico Windhausen considers not only the historical significance of this small body of films but also the conceptual implications of their most exemplary practices. Those practices include causal devices or mechanisms that require the filmmaker to react directly to events occurring at a specific locale, often through in-camera editing.
The films will also be discussed in terms of their links to French literature and British painting (specifically Oulipo and the Systems Group), with an eye toward introducing some of the more important questions raised by rule-based and systems-oriented processes of the 1970s. Of special interest will be the complex structures of Raban and Welsby’s dual-screen film River Yar, which will be screened in its entirety.