A ball has to be round. A circle has to be a perfect circle. Perfection of a ball is in its roundness. But in many of the cases, in what we call art, we are on an adventure with no rational end. You just keep working and working and, at some point, you say, that’s it, it’s done. (Mekas 2015, 51)
Early on in the research, as previously discussed, I outlined the ways in which the project was using a d.i.y punk methodology in my paper Towards a Radical Film Practice (Gall 2010). This idea further developed through dialogues, collaboration and practice, and was discussed in two further subsequent papers and published articles, co-authored with Dan Paolantonio . These notions were inspired by our experiences within d.i.y punk and its possible translation into a participatory film practice.
Another key influence as outlined in the contextual review, was filmmaker Duncan Reekie, facilitator of ‘Exploding Cinema’ (1991-now). One of his main arguments in his work, borrowing the term from Bakhtin (1984, 3), was the notion that the underground needed to reclaim a ‘the subversive strategies of the radical popular’
(Reekie 2007, 208). This space drew from Bakhtin’s carnivalesque concept, ideas around film, conviviality and the general subversion of state art control. In a paper published by ‘One Plus One Filmmakers Journal’, we outlined the ways in which,
‘Imperfect Cinema employs a d.i.y punk methodology to produce, disseminate and socialise a popular radical film practice’ (issue 06, 2011).
Let’s consider the shifting meaning of do-it-yourself (d.i.y) culture and its contemporary relevance. We are of course familiar with d.i.y in a home improvement context. But the history of d.i.y cultural music production from, skiffle music, to garage rock, to punk and beyond has been radically altered by digital technology. As discussed previously, in the West, most of us can now ‘do’ much of culture ourselves - uploading our films, music, blogs etc. on websites and social media platforms. Does this still have a political, emancipatory resonance with the punk context of d.i.y culture?
One of the ways that this research understands and utilises punk is that it popularised the ‘anyone can do it’, ‘no expert’ ethos as a subcultural practice, something that the avant-garde had been previously exploring in the 20th century. This liberation from limitations, of who is allowed to take part in culture, has been radically democratised through the Internet, but we wanted to celebrate and utilise the human element of face-to-face interaction. We also used punk simply as an easily communicated cultural reference and aesthetic influence that was pre-loaded with political and subcultural weight.
It was crucial that Imperfect Cinema be as immediate, inclusive and non-hierarchical as possible. We took some influence from the idea of a ‘floor-show’ - when a band leaves the stage and plays their set directly on the floor, with little or no barrier between them and the audience. The move to the floor suggests a negation of platforms and embraces horizontal approaches, as the whole room becomes the stage, shared by both the performer and those in attendance.
Often, my band Damerels adopted this approach. Our drummer would ask members of the crowd to play the drums during some songs, whilst I ‘sang’ most of the songs while shoulder-to-shoulder with the crowd. Often floor-shows take place in small venues or spaces that don’t have stages, but even when a venue did have a stage, we would opt for the floor, as it added intimacy and vitality to the experience. Floor-shows can lead to unexpected results, as you’re never sure exactly what will happen. The interaction between the band and the crowd is unpractised, uncertain and usually quite exiting. I wanted Imperfect Cinema to have these qualities.
This aim to blur the division between spectator and performer finds some association with Umberto Eco’s ideas of The Open Work (1984). The ‘comprehension of the original artefact is always modified by his particular and individual perspective. In fact, the form of the work of art gains its aesthetic validity precisely in proportion to the number of different perspectives from which it can be viewed and understood’ (Eco 1984, 49). Imperfect Cinema was there for people to openly access and subjectively interpret. Imperfect Cinema gained ‘validity’ in proportion to the number of different
Figure 7. Damerels at the Great Escape Festival, Brighton, 9th March 2013. (Source: Skye Portman Photography)
Though, in some ways, the project was never as ‘open’ as we envisioned. Dan and I were the drivers and facilitators of the project, but we did have the goal that we would eventually ‘pass the baton’ to other members of the community who wished to initiate and facilitate their own Imperfect Cinema micro-cinema. However, this never came to fruition as we imagined it. That said, the project is still in progress and the possibility for new facilitators is something to look towards again in the future.
The aim of ‘openness’ in the practice can also find links in other theorists. For Walter Benjamin, the demystification of culture and its methods of production can lead to the stimulation of new producers (Benjamin 1978, 233). For Benjamin, a ‘dialogical approach’ must be introduced ‘into the living social context’ (Benjamin 2008, 80). It was not the content that mattered so much as what tools could be used to elicit participation. Alongside the consideration of Lo-Fi technologies - what they can tell us about culture production and aesthetics - the new digital media tools present radical possibilities when shared in social spaces. These spaces are a place in which others could engage in dialogue with the producers.
The openness of the project shifted the perception of a radical digital media practice by highlighting the conditions of production through collective interaction. In this sense, Imperfect Cinema made itself ‘exposed’ by embracing imperfect methods of production: the production of the events, the dissemination of the research through zines and online social media, as well as through the encouragement of new producers.
This approach to accessible-practice coalesces with some of Roland Barthes' concepts, attempting to operate as a ‘writerly text’ as opposed to a ‘readerly text’ (Barthes 1990, 4). A readerly text being one closed to its audience and unconcerned with history. The value in a writerly text, for Barthes: ‘Because the goal of literary work (of literature as work) is to make the reader no longer a consumer, but a producer of the text’ (Barthes 1990, 4). By highlighting our own imperfections, through some of the film work, but also through the micro-cinema itself (technical mistakes, improvisations and uncertain live conditions of culture), the practice as research operated as an open-mobile text.
This drew from Stacey Thompson’s argument that ‘punk cinema’ must show its methods of production, and how it came to be, in order to encourage others to think and know that it is possible to take part. Thompson states:
Punk cinema employs an open, writerly aesthetic, engages with history, and critiques its own commodification. It can be negatively defined as non- Hollywoodized, where a Hollywood aesthetic demands a closed, readerly text unconcerned with history and obfuscating its position within the relations of production. Punk films…foreground their conditions of production, which stand as material signifiers of the possibility of making music or film, participating in critique, or doing both at once. (Thompson 2004, 47)
In my attempts at my own punk film, during my preliminary investigations into links between punk and cinema in 2008/9 as mapped in my introduction, I came to realise that an abstract, reading of punk, in and through only the aesthetic, limited the d.i.y principles that I had been inspired by. Punk had to be associated with action. How I came to understand this was framed with using this as opportunity to create participatory filmmaking practice in public spaces.
In The Society of the Spectacle (1967), Guy Debord’s critique of capitalism, he suggests
The Situationist International (SI) called out for new ways to create unexpected experiences and encounters to elicit a rupturing of ‘the spectacle’. Art could be playful and spirited, but must always be linked with political intent and action. Imperfect Cinema aimed to shift the course of everyday life and production, rupturing the routines of the community and the individual, as well as instigating a new questioning of contemporary cinema. For some of the workshops and projects that were run through Imperfect Cinema, I borrowed some of the practical tactics of the SI, such as ‘the dérive’, opening oneself up to the possibility of encountering new experiences, but more so, I encouraged their concept of merging art and life - integrating cinema into the social and everyday, specifically, my Walk on Film project.
Figure 8: Walk on Film. (Source: Walk on Film/Imperfect Cinema workshop 2014)
A further link between Imperfect Cinema and the SI is evident, as 1970s punk has often been associated with the SI, and many of the key figures and taste- makers of the time.
Malcolm McLaren and Bernie Rhodes, managers of The Sex Pistols and the Clash, amongst others (Marcus 1989, 19) were interested and inspired by some of SI’s ideas.
However, the SI did not believe in the ‘prank’ without the politics. A prank, as dissent, could be holding up two fingers, spitting on the floor, or telling a interviewing journalist to ‘fuck off’ , but if these actions are taken without a real intention to change the landscape, then it risks becoming no more than an aesthetic, as provocative as it might be. A howl of dissent, fortifying capitalist modes of production, can reveal the conditioned world as we are conducted to see it, but becomes problematic and somewhat contradictory if the ‘revealing’, inspired by the SI’s political stance, reinforces the conditions of the spectacle - namely, that the ‘nightmare’ of advanced capitalism is to continue holding its grip on our actions.