TAM Cinema is a moving image series screened at Tacoma Art Museum. Films are conceptually tied to current TAM exhibitions and features guest curators.
Upcoming Screenings
Elements: Material and Process in the Moving Image
Curated by David Dinnell and Jay Kuehner
Taking measure of the world in its material and natural dimensions, the works presented in this series foreground the elemental features of process – the transformation of matter across a broad spectrum of means from manual to mechanical, generative to extractive. Operational conditions are observed with fastidious cinematic attention, revealing the latent histories transmitted among people, places, and objects. The ‘instructional’ image is here made eligible for expansive interpretation; reframing the nominally prosaic effects of the process sequence as a form of useful beauty.
The full line-up and schedule for the series will be announced in October. A special presentation of Anthony McCall’s 1973 projected work Line Describing a Cone will take place at the Tacoma Art Museum on Sunday, November 9th as part of Elements: Material and Process in the Moving Image.
Line Describing a Cone, described by McCall as “a solid light film”, is a work for 16mm film projection that begins with a single white point against a black background. Presented in a long, empty space and projected through fog over the course of thirty minutes, this point of light gradually forms into a circle, forming a hollow cone of light that viewers are encouraged to interact with.
McCall says of this work, “Line Describing a Cone deals with one of the irreducible, necessary conditions of film: projected light. It deals with this phenomenon directly, independent of any other consideration. It is the first film to exist solely in real, three-dimensional space. This film exists only in the present: the moment of projection. It refers to nothing beyond this real time. (In contrast, most films allude to a past time). It contains no illusion. It is a primary experience, not secondary: i.e. the space is real, not referential; the time is real, not referential…”.
TAM Cinema is a free event, but donations are welcome.