Experimental Film and Other Visual Arts

This chapter focuses specifically on relationships between experimental film and visual art practices such as painting, sculpture, photography and drawing, thereby providing a clearer understanding of correlations between the two fields. Close relationships are evident in films used for expressive, personal purposes and in those taking more formal or conceptual approaches to experimentation. Some discussion of the broader visual arts will first be outlined to identify particular aesthetic, theoretical or political preoccupations informing artists and filmmakers. Thereafter, films will be discussed in the context of specific visual disciplines or movements. This categorisation is, however, not to be read as an attempt to fix a taxonomy on the films, but rather to inforrr the reader where relationships can be drawn between diverse practices. While many experimental filmmakers were informed by the visual arts, there were also prevailing interests in cinematographic recording devices and in taking oppositional approaches to the conventions of narrative, commercial cinema.