Tate Modern introduction to this special 16mm screening:
Canadian artist Michael Snow is celebrated for his groundbreaking work in a range of media including film, video and sound. Over the last six decades, his practice has explored the characteristics of these media in great depth, addressing questions of time, movement and perception. We are honoured to welcome the artist to Tate to screen his renowned film Wavelength1967, followed by the world premiere of Waivelength 2019, a new audio performance specially conceived for Tate Modern's Starr Cinema. A feat of structural filmmaking, Wavelength unfolds as a gradual zoom from one side of the artist’s loft to the other, accompanied by the sound of a rising sine wave. The film is punctuated by changes in light, colour filters and four moments in which human characters appear, gesturing towards a narrative. After a short break, Snow and collaborator Mani Mazinani will premiere an audio performance entitled Waivelength. The immersive performance reworks the film's sine wave soundtrack into a new composition distributed across multiple channels of sound in real time.
Here is a thoughtful piece by Donato Totaro on Wavelength, often dubbed the ‘Citizen Kane’ of experimental cinema.
‘Thirty-five years after its inception, Wavelength (Ontario, 1967, 45 min.) remains one of the most vital and (still) groundbreaking films in the history of experimental cinema. It is, quite simply, the “Citizen Kane” of experimental cinema. Screenings of Wavelength in and out of academic situations have probably generated more mixed emotions – frustration, boredom, exhilaration and awe (sometimes in the same spectator) – than any other film. I can vouch from personal experience of teaching this film, that Wavelength retains its power to evoke these emotions.’
Here (and above) is a 1983 documentary on Wavelength’s director Michael Snow.
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