10.02 Las Casas: June 1992 to December 1992
Las Casas was a working
restaurant at 153 Clapham High Street. The first show seems to have been on the
9th April 1992. A further 13 to 16 shows were put on at fortnightly intervals.
Jenet Thomas remembers Stephen Houston finding the venue when they were evicted
from the Cooltan. It was a vegetarian restaurant run in a friendly
non-commercial way. The sort of place you could sit around nursing a cup of
coffee without being hassled. It was used as a gallery for local artists so it
already had a kind of arts centre feel to it.
It was a long, thin, narrow space, trendily decorated (but) it
didn't have the sense of a chain, or a style bar about it. It was like it had
been decorated by the people that ran it, with a sense of joie de vivre. It
didn't seat that many people; they crammed quite a lot of tables in, and when
it was functioning as a venue, most of the time we were really jam-packed. We
couldn't really take more than about 70 people, even that wasn't comfortable,
but sometimes we would get 150 people turning up. (Jenet Thomas interview)
The over-crowding was solved by having standing room
all the way back to the door. There was a convenient place to put projectors
for loops and slides on a wooden construction over the stairwell that led down
to the toilets. The projectionists had to crawl around in this space as it only
had a few feet of headroom. There was no video projector at that time just a
big TV as a monitor. This was mounted on a swing and attached to the ceiling
with four chains.
Steven (Houston) constructed this wooden stage, I suppose about
the size of this carpet here. Sort
of 6 foot x 10 a wooden stage. He worked out a system for how it was assembled
with sort of pins, and holes, and nuts and bolts, and each one had a number.
You had to do it in a specific order. It was numbered and so it was almost like
a puzzle, every time we did a show there, we had to get all these wooden bits
out, and complete this wooden puzzle. (JT)
The effort put into this show the importance of live
performance to the Exploding Cinema ethos.[1]
The first show at Las Casas
that I found any archived trace of was on the general election night of 9th
April 1992.
There is no surviving programme but there is a poster[2]
and the minute book records a show in which TV sets were covered with red, blue
and green gels. Shane Collins, the Green Party candidate had connections with
the Exploding Network.[3]
The next show was on 27th April at Las Casas (no surviving programme).[4]
A meeting minuted only as being in May notes Duncan as Chairperson with Jenny,
Anthony, Cathy, Suzanne, Debbie and Donal attending. Each person is recorded as
taking responsibility for a clear role in the plans for the next show: Donal
Ruane is recorded as doing the programming, the projecting and putting together
the printed programme; Duncan is the MC; Anthony is in charge of video and
sound; Cathy is on the door and Jenny is doing 'stage' (floor manager) and
transport. There is mention of surplus income being generated and plans to buy
group equipment. The accumulated profit of c£300 was, at the time, kept in
Duncan's Enterprise Allowance business account. A separate group account was
not started until October 1992.[5]
The first show at Las Casas
for which a programme survives was on June 4th 1992.[6]
The programme has a pale, peach-coloured, paper cover and entries are typed.
The layout is neat with a separation of graphics and text. Every one of the 16
pages has an image, one of which is an Exploding Cinema logo. The tidy design
style would seem to imply that Donal Ruane, a trained graphic designer, was
making the programmes during this period.
There are short reviews by
'Captain Pat Porteus' (aka Duncan Reekie) from the show two weeks previously.
Half of the reviews are of films by collective members. This show of 4th June has films by,
Donal Ruane, Duncan Reekie, Colette Rouhier, Andre Stitt and Lepke B, who are
all collective members, as well as work by Ken McDonald and Vivienne Dick.[7]
The text on the front cover and inside front cover celebrates film as 'a magic
process', 'a chemical conjunction of light and matter'. It goes on to explain
'the persistence of vision'. Further inside the programme are images of
zoetropes and a very simple and effective 'Make a Film' graphic sequence which
explains establishing shots and cut-ins. These references to moving image
production techniques refer back to early cinema as well as relating to the
Do-It-Yourself ideology of the counter culture.
Apart from this didactic
theme there is an odd letter to the Daily Mirror (dated 1937) which purports to
tell of the effectiveness of 'capital punishment' on three seventeen year old
schoolgirls by a schoolmistress.[8]
The programme also contains an odd anecdote about a home movie that is said to
have been made by John F. Kennedy two months before he was killed. The subject
of this fictional amateur movie is purported to be an assassination. Headed
'Ripley's Believe it or Not' it is probably 'disinformation' which reflects the
counter-cultural interest in urban myth. This reference to home movies
glamorises the amateur genre and asserts its historical significance.
By now the Exploding Cinema
formula is already well established and there are regular shows every two weeks
with a paying audience of 50 - 100 or more.
The next show was on 18th
June. In the programme, 'Captain Porteus' reviews the show on the 4th June
declaring it a 'great success' and talks of an 'encouraging and energetic'
audience. Mention is made of impromptu music by The Murphys, showing films at
the wrong speed and unexpected power failures.
This programme continues the
didactic theme. Inside the front cover is a found text defining the underground,
first with an unreferenced quote from Marcel Duchamp; ńThe only solution for
the artist of tomorrow is to go undergroundī. It then quotes a text on film in
the US beat scene of 1959. Although I have not been able to find the source of
this quote it shows how the history of the underground was associated with
Post-War USA scene. The centre spread contains a short text about the gruesome
Manson Family rituals with Super 8 and dog's blood. Further on is a Union Jack with picture of the queen,
corsets, and the text 'ENGLAND R.I.P.' Clearly, ten years after 'Anarchy in the
UK' the punk spirit was alive and well in the Exploding Cinema collective.[9]
These references to punk and hippie antiheroes are all somewhat retro in the
context of 1992 when the contemporary underground was involved with music raves
and techno music but they serve to give the angry and threatening tone of
Exploding's oppositional posture.
The cover graphic of the
programme of the 2nd July show is a pastiche of the famous Black Panther photograph
of an armed and bereted black man peeping through a curtained window. In this
crude drawn copy, signed by Donal, the Black Panther is holding a home movie
camera instead of a gun: 'Liberate our minds, by any means necessary'. A found
text in the inside cover talks about how the exclusiveness of the mainstream
cinema is tied up with the large amount of money required to get the slick
illusionistic narrative. He ends by calling for a compelling alternative. The
programme includes a documentary about William Burroughs by Ellie Jeffreys[10]
to complete the parade of retro Sixties underground signifiers.
Returning again to the punk
era the centre-spread text is a reproduction of Nick Zedd's 'The Cinema of
Transgression Manifesto', which had first appeared seven years before.[11]
Captain Porteus' reviews start off by exhorting the audience to get out there
and make new films; 'Don't be shy, even if you haven't made a film before, all
you have to do is point the camera and shoot, Go for it!!!'. Several eye dissection
graphics throughout are clear metaphorical exhortation to see things anew.
Donal, Jennet, Lepke, Andre
& Duncan seem to be prolific moviemakers. They all have something in the
show on 20th July. The centre-spread of the programme of that date contains a
much-reduced DIY graphic guide to the subject of drawing directly onto film.
Captain Porteus describes
the last show as 'a heady mix of High Art, camp trash and documentary
expose'. Marc Conway's Super 8
film 'Mantis Part1' featured footage from the last year's Anti-Poll Tax riots
in Trafalgar Square.[12]
Contacts given are Duncan or Jennet who both live in a short-life terrace house
in Rodwell Road in East Dulwich. They continue to live there until 1998 and
during that period it becomes the main Exploding Cinema headquarters.
In an undated but minuted
meeting that followed this show, the collective decided to limit the number of
longer films to a maximum of one half-hour film per show. The MC, live
performers and games are agreed to work well to break up any possibility of
monotony. A healthy bank balance of £420 is reported.
Duncan Reekie's rant 'FUCK
OFF AVANT-GARDIST' takes the centre fold in the next programme (see illustration
11).
[13]
There is also reference to the world's most famous home
movie: Abraham Zapruder's amateur footage of the assassination of President
John F. Kennedy.
[14]
Captain Porteus comments on how the audience,
"was engaged in top gear, cheering, hurling insults and arguing amongst
themselves over the merits or demerits of the work on view".
[15]
Cathy
Gibb's Super 8 film and loop 'Scratch in the Park' was a double projection A
simple but highly effective piece achieved by scratching onto the surface of
some footage, shot in a London Park on a summer's day. The Loop projection, of
a bird's head, was constantly moved around the space, sometimes even projected
onto the audience itself.[16]
In spite of the apparent
high energy of this show the minutes of a meeting on the 2nd August[17]
reflect some boredom; 'It went on too long (There were) too many projected
works'.
The inside cover of the next
programme on the 13th August shows us 'How to Make a Zoetrope'
again.[18]
The centre-spread is copied
from 'A Directory of Alternative
Society Projects' (1973). It gives detailed advice on '8mm and 16mm FILMS FOR
SHOWING IN PUBS'. 'Paddy Payne' (aka Donal Ruane) has taken over the review
section. There is another rant entitled 'DEMOCRATIZE ART!' which is a tirade
against the passive audience.
Democratize
Art! Audience, what a shame it is that you are constantly travelling from venue
to venue and once arrived you are forced to sit in the darkness or wander
around sterile galleries. Audience, how lamentable it is that you are all the
time confronted with closed sacred objects produced by ambitious professionals.
You are excluded from the art process and the trouble is that if you seek to
end this exclusion by becoming an artist you will no longer be a member of the
audience. Rather, this blissful union of art and audience must take place at
the venue.[19]
A democratic spirit was
certainly part of the collective ethos. Minutes of a meeting at the beginning
of October mention a 'New constitution and positive discrimination to get all
members to voice their opinions'[20]
The programme of the 27th
August has a 'Fuck Off Avantgardist' graphic signed by Donal (no other
Exploding Cinema graphics are signed). Inside the front of this programme is an
unreferenced text about Punk filmmakers, including Vivienne Dick, who rejected
the academic formalism of the earlier Seventies avant-garde and made 'a partial
return to the underground of the 1960's'.[21]
The show on 10th September
has another surrealist style programme cover graphic signed by Donal with the
text: 'WE WILL RENDER YOUR SYMBOLS MEANINGLESS'. Inside there is a witty and subversive
glossary, as an 'Independent Film A - Z', E.g.:
Experimental:
A type of avant-garde film made by artists who think they're scientists.
Underground:
A seething rabble of no-budget film/video makers who don't give a fuck for the
'independent' film industry.
'Ripley's Believe it or
Not!' is a story alleging the Queen Mother had an affair during the war.[22]
'Paddy Payne' starts off the review section by addressing the audience; 'If you
need any assistance or equipment just ask. Don't be afraid, anyone can do it'.
The back cover graphic has the word 'ANGRY' under an eerie drawing of a child's
doll.
An unusually well minuted
meeting on 13th September was critical about the last show which was considered
'a bad show', in which a member of the collective got drunk and insulted the
audience. 'Sloppy Some films too long
Started too late The team
is becoming complacent' A mail-out to filmmakers was mentioned. Publicity for
shows is being circulated to Student Unions, Independent Cinemas and record shops.
There was a prescient mention of the need for a policy regarding the lending of
vital pieces of equipment.
In a meeting on 20th
September a door price of £3 with £2 concessionary rate was voted in. It was
also decided that musicians and other live performers should get their travel
expenses reimbursed.[23]
The programme of a show on
24th September shows the image of a young girl's face on the front cover: 'A
fairy inside, Mummy?' The style of
this goes back to the more handmade scribbly style of the earliest surviving
programme. This seems to indicate the period in which Donal made up the
programmes on his own. Indeed there is a minute of 4th October which suggests
that the programmes are now being made at collective meetings.
Jenet was MC for the first time
at this show.[24] The show is
described in the following programme with the usual hyperbole: 'The night was a
sublime mixture of poets, films, impromptu performance, edible opera, high noon
shenanigans and curious goings on involving much rubber and human flesh'.[25]
'After weeks of talk Anthony
is going to buy a (video) projector' with help from £50 loans from collective
members Andy, Suzanne, Donal and William.[26]
A show programme in November
is undated but has a cover graphic which declares Guy Fawkes is 'a Hero',
so it will be early November if not the 5th. The programme has a satirical
cartoon of 'Malcolm LeGrice, on Arts Council grant, researching sprocket holes
in the Amazon Basin (1972)' (See illustration
12). There is a short report on Exploding Cinema's multi-screen contribution
to 'Fanny Adam's Big Ball' in the West End. These smaller excursions to contribute
to other events tend to go unrecorded but could have been an important part
of getting Exploding Cinema known to a wider non-experimental film audience.
The minute book shows there
was some excitement at the possibility of a continental show coming up in
Amsterdam, which indicates that international contacts had started to bear
fruit and that the influence of Exploding Cinema had already spread beyond
London.[27]
On the 17th December 1992 there
was a one-year anniversary show.
[28]
The programme contained an acknowledgement of all the contributors
so far.
[29]
(See illustration
13) In this first year there were around 13 people taking regular active roles.
The series of events at Las Casas had established an identity for the group,
which became quite separate from the mother collective of Cooltan/ Pullit.
The regular events twice a month at Las Casas seem to have tested and developed
the basic format of Exploding that had evolved in the Cooltan Cafe; the core
network of filmmakers and the cultural presence of Exploding had expanded
enormously. It had developed a kudos, which was to induce a continued expansion
and subsequent fracturing in the coming year or two. In many ways it was to
become a victim of its own success.
The founder, Stephen
Houston, left the group to return to Australia having shown only one of his own
works. Lorelei Lisowsky had also left to start her own 'New Cinema' in the
South West Of England.[30]
_______________________________________________
[1] See later section on
performance
[2] See poster in Appendix
[3] Jenet Thomas' diary
[4] Jenet Thomas' diary
[5] No records are yet found for
any show(s) in March or May 1992. By all accounts there were shows every two
weeks on a Thursday night with meetings on the following Sunday.
[6] The programmes may be
retrieved in electronic form from the CDRs, which are part of the archive
record that will accompany this thesis. They are in files identified by a date.
[7] A well-known Super 8
filmmaker who was Irish but worked in New York.
[8] I assume this is an ironic
and affectionate reference to the sensationalism and sexual innuendo of the
tabloid press.
[9] Much of this punk influence
could have emanated from Donal Ruane.
[10] Ellie Jeffrey's 'Seven
Deadly Sins' (video 7 mins 1992).
[11] Quoted from Underground
Film Bulletin
(Issue 4, 1985).
[12] Marc Conway (Super 8 4 mins)
Shown again in the next show. This is one of the ways in which the Exploding
Cinema could be a direct cinematic mouthpiece of a wider counter culture.
[13] IP 30-7-92
[14] See article by Michael
Chanan, 'On Documentary: the Zapruder quotient' (Filmwaves 4, Spring 1998 pp22-23)
[15] IP 30 - 7 - 92 see p13
[16] IP 30-7-92 p13. Cathy
Gibbs', 'Scratch in the Park' (Super 8 3 mins 1992)
[17] Attended by Jenet, Duncan,
Londie, Danny, Donal & Andre.
[18] IP 13-8-92
[19] IP 13-8-92 p12
[20] Minute Book 4-10-92
[21] Referring to Jack Smith, Ron
Rice, Ken Jacobs, the Kuchar brothers and early Andy Warhol.
[22] IP 10-9-92 p9
[23] A practice that continued
throughout the Nineties and is the only instance of anyone getting travel or
any personal expenses paid.
[24] Jenet Thomas' Diary, exact
date not recorded, probably the 5th.
[25] November 1992
[26] Minute Book 1. 1st Nov 1992
[27] Minutes of 8-11-92.
[28] A flyer for the Dec. 3rd
and 17th shows still calls the show 'Cinema Caf³' although there is
also a smaller Exploding Cinema logo in the bottom right hand corner. See
Appendix: Early flyers.
[29] Programme of 17th
December 1992
[30] Email from Lorelie Lisowsky
to author 2001.