TEACHING AND LEARNING CINEMA – Louise Curham and Lucas Ihlein

Malcolm’s breath track for Horror Film 1 – a digital preservation conundrum

Tomorrow Sun 4 April, there will be a performance of Malcolm Le Grice’s Horror Film 1 at the Courtisane Festival in Belgium. (Aside: I see a program by Audrey Lam of the work of Corinne and Arthur Cantrill was shown by Courtisane last year – great to see, I’m not aware of it travelling widely in Australia unfortunately).

Cinzia Nistico has worked with Betija Zvejniece for the last few years making performances. This time Betija is making this performance supported by one of Courtisane’s 2026 curators, Erwin van ’t Hart. It’s in the program Chronochromatic Measures 2. Erwin is the curator of the program in collaboration with LABO BxL?—?artist-run filmlab in Brussels.

On page 101 of the Courtisane program, you’ll find Betija and Horror Film 1 https://www.courtisane.be/sites/default/files/Catalogus%202026_BW_mail.pdf [Here is another link to the Courtisane Catalogue]

In 2013 Lucas and I visited Malcolm in Devon. He gave us an audio file on CD of a breath track. My recollection is that he told us he used this recording sometimes, he created the breathing track quite a few different ways. What he was clear about is that the breathing comes in before the performer starts, he used the breath track to get in the head space to perform. Erwin is very keen to use Malcolm’s track for tomorrow’s performance so find the link below.

So what is the digital preservation/digital curation conundrum? The title in the metadata of the track is nothing to do with the breath track! The CD is clearly labelled on the outside but when I open up the file, the metadata reports that the author is Andrzej Sledz on an album titled ‘Wywieranie wplywu na ludzi’ English translation ‘Influencing people’, year 2006. I recollect Malcolm telling us nothing about Andrzej nor anything about this file title. The internet does tell me Andrzej is a filmmaker but there’s no obvious connection …

Here’s a screenshot:

Screen shot of metadata for Breath track showing Polish artist — Above: metadata for the one track on the CD …

The good news is that when I play the track, it’s Malcolm’s breath track.

Below is the track and I’ll leave some things here for Erwin:

Here’s the user’s manual link
Here’s the ‘users log book‘ to leave a note about how it all went, tips and tricks for the next performance/performer/curator

Breath track here on Soundcloud https://soundcloud.com/lcurham/horror-film-1-breathing-track (unfortunately, I can’t upload the AIFF-C into WordPress)

Aditya Martodiharjo makes a performance of Horror Film 1 at Big River, Kanchanaburi, Thailand Sat 13 Dec 2025

Today Adit from Lab Laba Laba is going to make a performance of Horror Film 1. The performance is happening in the Big River film meeting organised by Richard and Dianna of Artits Film Workshop/Nanolab, leaders in the artist-run film labs community. Tonight’s performance is happening in the old paper mill in Kanchanaburi, Thailand, day 4 of this extraordinary gathering of film lab members and film maker-artists from all around the region. Check out the attendees list and you’ll see people from Taiwan, India, Australia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, China, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Japan …

Dusting off: the Peter Mudie Archives

peter mudie archives flyer

Dusting off: the Peter Mudie Archives
WHEN: Thurs Dec 4, 2025, 11am-12:30pm
WHERE: UWA EZONE North 109
WHO: All welcome!
ORGANISERS: A/Prof Jo Law, Dr Paul Boyé, A/Prof Lucas Ihlein, Prof Eleanor Suess, Dr Louise Curham, Dr Lee Kinsella, with support from Peter Mudie’s family and the AAANZ conference.

In 1993, the late Peter Mudie curated Dusting off the Other. Peter borrowed 16mm experimental film prints from around the world and showed them at the Film and Television Institute in Fremantle. Over three months, the weekly screenings bent the brains and bodies of the local film art community, and students studying art and architecture at UWA.

Peter introduced experimental film practice to the undergraduate curriculum at UWA, and his teaching had a huge impact on many emerging artists over nearly three decades. The viewing of historical works was combined with discussions of the film medium, and the social, cultural, and political contexts of their making. Students were provided with equipment, facilities, and time to experiment with materials. Physical participation and social interactions in film workshops created deep connections within the cohort.

This roundtable discussion focuses on the research, teaching, legacies, and archives of Peter Mudie. Everyone is invited to join us for a “remembering circle” where our direct experiences are shared, and Peter’s legacy is honoured.

metalux logo

BONUS! METALUX SCREENING:
WHERE: ___gs Shop 13, 375 William Street, Boorloo 6000.
WHEN: December 4th, 6 – 9 pm

‘Metalux’, curated by Jo Law and Redmond Bridgeman, and facilitated by Paul Boyé, is a series of experimental cameraless films and experimental video from 1990’s Western Australia. These works represent a scene of cinematic experimentation with materialist methodologies, influenced by the late Peter Mudie. The program considers perception construction, identity formation, and structures of consciousness through an investigation of the material of film.

More info on METALUX screening is on instagram here.

Dusting Off: The Peter Mudie Archives – Flyer PDF

Line Describing a Cone – Jess’ experience

line describing a cone - a panorama - by jess — A panorama by Jess which I think really captures the feeling in the room – embodied experimentation, fuzzy immersion…

When we shared Line Describing a Cone with the students and staff at UOW, we were joined by Jess. She’s a former student of mine who often attends things in an “unofficial” capacity – and this ambiguous role – an insider-outsider – is something that contributes to her valuable insights. Jess’ observations are always welcome and generous, and she often sees things that those of us who are more “embedded insiders” will miss. True to form, soon after we presented the Cone, Jess emailed through this deeply felt and finely described account of her experience. She kindly said she would be happy for us to publish it here. – Lucas
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Line Describing A Cone – some reflections from events at the Drill Hall Gallery and the University of Wollongong

What follows is a report back on the event on Sat 20 Sep at the Drill Hall Gallery, Canberra and today in the theatre in room G04 in building 29 at University of Wollongong.

To my mind, both of these events have been a success but in different ways. The black room at UOW was very kind to the work. Using a standard 50mm lens made the line as sharp as possible, there was a slight shine to the black wall which also made the projection stand out. The throw was long (c. 20 m) which felt spacious and gave plenty of room for the audience of students and academics to get into and around the beam.
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CONE & BULB – event info

When: Saturday 20 September, 6.30-8pm
Venue: Drill Hall Gallery, ANU Canberra
Attendance is free, bookings required: Register here

line describing a cone 2015 kandos [Anthony McCall’s Line Describing a Cone (1973) presented at CEMENTA Festival in Kandos, 2015. Photo by Alex Wisser]

CONE + BULB – an evening of landmark Expanded Cinema is a presentation by Australian artist group Teaching and Learning Cinema (Lucas Ihlein and Louise Curham). Closely aligned with the Drill Hall Light Source exhibition’s focus on the technologies of cinema projection, we offer two groundbreaking works from the early days of the London Film-makers Co-op.
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Collecting and Preserving New Media and Performance Art (with Pip and Libby)

Pip Laurenson with film scanner — Pip Laurenson at UCL with the high-tech celluloid film scanner

While in England, I (Lucas) was lucky enough to visit Pip Laurenson and Libby Ireland at University College London. They have a whole program which tackles the philosophical and practical challenges of conserving media art and performative art. In the photo above, you can see Pip showing me a very fancy celluloid film scanning device, used for transferring 35mm or 16mm films to high-resolution digital video files.

In the same room (I wish I had taken a photo!) there was a pile of sample video formats – ranging from U-Matic, Beta, VHS, mini-DV, DVD etc. One of the big questions for the conservation of moving image work is when and how to transfer from one format to another – and the aesthetic considerations of such transfers.

With conservation decisions about media artworks, there aren’t really any right or wrong answers – much of this is done on a case-by-case basis. A lot depends on the artists’ stated intentions, alongside experienced judgements about the most important things to prioritise about a particular artwork (Louise and I refer to these as the work’s “DNA”).

Conservator Libby Ireland with artwork undergoing conservation

In the conservation lab at UCL, Libby showed me this artwork by pioneering kinetic artist Liliane Lijn. It’s called Cosmic Flares III (1966).

The work consists of a painted timber frame, a perspex panel with a pattern of dots made of small polymer lenses (a bit like contact lenses for your eyes), and a set of incandescent light bulbs set into the frame edge. The light bulbs turn on and off in different combinations to create an ever changing kinetic light sculpture.

The light bulbs were very specifically chosen for the work, which was made in the 1960s. Of course, these bulbs are no longer commercially available, so the challenge for the conservator is to work with the artist (who is still alive), the collector who owns the work, and various lightbulb manufacturers to come up with a solution. Possible solutions could include:

to commission the fabrication of bespoke incandescent lightbulbs to match the originals;
to reverse engineer the bulbs so that they have the same outer shell but with an LED insert;
to start from scratch and remake the whole artwork with new bulbs;
to try out some other solution.

In the end, what decision is made will depend on a range of overlapping factors:

how flexible the artist is in allowing the work to evolve into new technological formats;
how expensive the new lightbulbs are (and how much the artwork’s owner is prepared to stump up);
the quality of light that any replacement bulbs have, relative to the originals;
and what “meaning” those specific bulbs had in the original work.

There are a lot of factors and the solution is always going to be an experiment, and an opportunity for learning.

While we (Pip, Libby, and I) were talking, we reflected on the fact that the practice-based research processes underpinning conservation are dialogical – they involve a lot of conversations, and these conversations can generate fascinating stories which, if shared with an audience, can enrich our experience of the work. That’s why it’s great that Pip and Libby are so diligent in publishing the stories of their work in collecting and conserving new media and performance art. You can see some of their articles here and here.

Proposition for the museum acquisition of Horror Film 1

Museums find it difficult to collect works of media and performance art, compared with traditional art objects like paintings, drawings, and sculpture. This makes sense. A media artwork might consist of a combination of software and hardware, as well as data-storage components (digital files, audio tapes, celluloid films, etc) all of which can be volatile – they decay, software goes out of date, etc.

And performative works are often made to be experienced “live” – they don’t exist as durable objects. So collecting media and live art is tricky. But it should be done! If not, museums are not honouring their responsibility to store and transmit significant cultural works into the future.

I (Lucas) have always struggled with the poor historicisation of conceptual and performance art. It’s difficult for younger generations of artists to access and build upon the work of our predecessors if we never get to experience those works for ourselves. So I believe it behooves museums to put in the effort, and skill up their staff on the best ways to collect and care for ephemeral / experience-based art.
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Making connections in France and England

I (Lucas) am on a trip to Europe, mainly for family reasons. While I’m here, I decided to take the opportunity to visit some folks TLC has been working with for a while.

This is Raja Appuswamy, a data scientist who’s been leading the “synthetic DNA” component of our collaboration. Raja lives in the south of France, and it so happened that my family was passing close to his town, so we met up for a gelato in Nice.

Raja and Lucas meet in Nice

In this photo, Raja hands over a plastic vial containing four tiny stainless steel capsules of synthetic DNA. The DNA in these capsules houses a prototype version of our Horror Film 1 Users Manual.

four tiny stainless steel capsules

The proposition is this: synthetic DNA can store vast amounts of data, without loss or degradation, at room temperature, for 1000 years. For this reason, Raja argues, synthetic DNA may be a good candidate for archiving items of cultural significance. It’s early days for this technology – using synthetic DNA is still too expensive to be properly useful – so really, our collaboration thus far stands as a ‘proof of concept’ and a provocation.

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Vale Malcolm Le Grice (1940-2024)

We, Lucas and I, are so saddened by the passing of Malcolm Le Grice. Lucas and Malcolm first met in 2003. Reconnecting in Sydney in 2010, Malcolm told Lucas he felt it was time ‘hang up his boots’ on performing Horror Film 1. Since then, we’ve been in intermittent contact with Malcolm, lots in the past couple of years.

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