“Surround the earth with our cameras”: Interrupted Histories of Cinematic Expansion with Erica Levin

This talk considers the legacy of Jonas Mekas’s engaged critique of expanded cinema, exploring how it evolved in tandem with his conception of “the avant-garde newsreel.” As a filmmaker, programmer, writer, and tireless promoter of experimental film, Mekas’s project intersected with what Tess Takahashi describes as the rise of “experimental screens” in the 1960s, a growing concern “not only what constituted a screen, but where screens could be located and used.” Looking back at a series of pivotal moments in the development of expanded cinema, including experiments that did not succeed, this talk considers the ongoing relevance of this mode of filmmaking to contemporary practices of artistic research and production.