August 9, 9pm, Symphony Barn

by Jacob Korczynski
Where are the boundaries of expanded cinema? In his essay, The Expanded Field of Cinema, or Exercise on the Perimeter of a Square, Eric de Bruyn proposes that expanded cinema typically refers to a multimedia practice that seeks to create an environment of immersion, one that envelops the viewer through an emphasis upon the projected image.1 Through performances that simultaneously occupy the realms of film and theatre, Andrew Lampert resists such historical categories, and rather than a cinematic experience based on an environment of immersion, instead taps the potential of cinema as an environment of interaction.

Lampert produces performances that question the boundaries of expanded cinema as part of a practice that also includes single-screen films and single-channel videos. Whether working alongside his colleagues in cinema, music or other disciplines, many of his performances are collaborative, and all of Lampert’s works share a fascination with social identity, role-playing and direct communication with the viewer. His performances typically employs tactics of misdirection, misinterpretation, visual and verbal directions, as well as spontaneous decision making by the artist who, participating as projectionist, foregrounds this role as one that is as integral to the performance as the production of the image. Rather than reinforcing a tradition of expanded cinema where artists interrogate the materiality of the medium or the properties of the projection apparatus, Lampert’s works act as interventions that situate the space of the cinema as a site for social dialogue.

de Bruyn suggests “performative film abolishes the purely reproductive function of film by activating the spectator as a participant and drawing attention to the actual content of the screening.” In this context, Lampert’s performances (that cannot be reproduced, only redeveloped) do not only question one’s relationship to a medium based upon the viewing of a fixed document, they also refuse the role typically assigned to you, the viewer, as an anonymous member of the audience.

Andrew Lampert is an interdisciplinary artist who primarily works with the moving image. He has presented projects at The Kitchen, the International Film Festival Rotterdam, the Getty Museum and in Day for Night, the 2006 Whitney Biennial. Based in New York City where he is the Archivist and Programmer at Anthology Film Archives, Lampert is currently developing a performance to be presented at the British Film Institute’s Southbank Centre in London later this year.

"Tempting to try to explain two months before we meet what exactly it is you’ll see, the details of our first introduction. Thinking of you now, here at my desk, weighing options, configurations. Perhaps expect some older pieces, still new to you, previously presented elsewhere to audiences no longer as alien to me today as we are to each other. Look at me here thinking about what to bring, what you’ll like, as if I understand you, unknown Durham, rural mystery awaiting this city boy carrying expectations of perfect light and tall trees, long shadows and new friends. But expectations won’t help us eight weeks from when I’m writing this, which is now. You probably don’t know that my works are often site-specific, dependent on certain performers, no two shows ever the same and why do it twice anyway. Projectors, sure, but people, places, texts and incidents I can’t necessarily recreate. And wouldn’t that deprive us of our special evening, this unique experience? It would be rude to serve leftovers to guests, especially when I’m the latter in your maple-coated land. So, among the hubbub, certainly count on a new piece especially prepared with you in mind, multiple-projections, suggestions, tributes and directions. We’re entering a pact with the mutual goal of lively entertainment and earnest effort. There will be sound. There will be light. And this is all I can offer you, Canada."

- Andrew Lampert