Ways of Viewing: The Wooden Lightbox and the Audible Picture Show

In a unique once-only screening/performance double-bill, The Magic Lantern has invited Canadian artist Alex Mackenzie and Edinburgh-based filmmaker Matt Hulse to explore two under-appreciated aspects of cinema viewing - the aural experience and the role of the projector.

The Wooden Lightbox: A Secret Art of Seeing draws from turn of the century cinematic prototypes and long forgotten ideas surrounding the moving image and its early promise. At the core of this approach is the use of a homebuilt projector to present a striking array of handmade and processed emulsion. Hypnosis, panorama, motion studies, expectation, magic, the dreamworld and sleight of eye conspire in this intimate and immersive framework.

Alex will perform live with a hand-cranked 16mm projector built and assembled from various relic projector parts and framed in a wooden box. Ten chapters are presented over the course of 4 reels. Film speed is varied manually by cranking more quickly or more slowly, while direction of the action is controlled by winding forward and backward. The Wooden Lightbox is an ongoing work in progress, an assembly of images entirely hand-processed and contact-printed, transforming and developing as new materials are added and deleted.

Alex MacKenzie has been working as a media artist for over 15 years with a focus on various models of expanded cinema and light projection involving the handmade image. He was the founder and curator of the Edison Electric Gallery of Moving Images, the Blinding Light!! Cinema and the Vancouver Underground Film Festival.

Matt Hulse's Audible Picture Show is an international touring show first performed in 2003. It comprises short audio works created for a darkened cinema by a diverse range of people including visual artists, film makers, animators, radio makers, audio artists, sound designers, writers & musicians. Each show is compiled afresh from the growing archive of 100+ unique works, which includes pieces by Tony Hill, Vernon & Burns, Andrew Kotting, Helena Gough, Torsten Lauschmann & Momus. Many pieces were created at the invitation of the show’s curator. Others were submitted by those inspired by the show. Yet more were found along the way.

Matt Hulse is best known for award-winning films. His free-spirited, collaborative approach has produced & inspired a diversity of works, some cross-disciplinary, including animation, audio art, installation, web projects, sound design, music, printed textiles & performance. In 2001 he was a recipient of a Creative Scotland Award.