CHAPTER 12

Film as Performance

Gallery/theatrical

Film as performance occurs when the artist engages/interacts with the projection experience as it is happening. Such actions can take place in a variety of spaces from traditional theaters to classrooms, auditoriums, gallery spaces, museums, outside viewing areas, basically anywhere a filmmaker can set up screen(s) and have electricity to power his or her projectors.

Film as performance has a fairly long history from Méliès’s initial experiments to incorporate film into his magic shows, to the films made to screen with/alongside avant-garde performances such as René Clair’s Entr’acte (1924), which played in two parts during a ballet based on a book and with sets designed by Francis Picabia, ...

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