TEACHING AND LEARNING CINEMA – Louise Curham and Lucas Ihlein

ON FOLLOWING AND BREAKING INSTRUCTION

ON FOLLOWING AND BREAKING INSTRUCTION
by Aditya H. Martodiharjo

Date: Fri, 23 October 2026
Time: 9 – 10.30PM
Location: SAM, Level 1, The Engine Room
Admission: SGD $10 (Ticketed)

The presentation of expanded cinema performances often depends heavily on the presence of the artist themselves. In situations where the artist is unable to accompany the work in person, they would write a set of instructions so the venue is still able to present the work.

When there are no instructions, the performance simply cannot happen. But what if those instructions are not merely functional? What if they are actually part of the aesthetic, part of the artwork itself? And how restrictive is the instruction manual for the performer?

In this programme, Aditya Martodiharjo will explore and investigate different approaches to creating and performing photochemical works, with a particular focus on how instruction-based practices can shape the presentation and performance of film.

The programme will include three performances on 16mm film projectors and 35mm slide projector

Performance 1: Man with Mirror by Guy Sherwin, interpreted by Aditya Martodiharjo using Instruction Manual by Teaching and Learning Cinema (TLC)

Performance 2: Horror Film 1 by Malcolm Le Grice, interpreted by Aditya Martodiharjo using Instruction Manual by Teaching and Learning Cinema (TLC)

Performance 3: Serene/Static by Aditya Martodiharjo, in collaboration with Rizki Lazuardi, SA3A, Mark Chua and Lam Li Shuen

Through these three performances, Aditya will explore the limitations, boundaries, interpretations, and possibilities of instruction manuals as part of film performance. By performing works through instructions rather than through the direct presence of their original creators, he examines how a performance can be transmitted, interpreted, and transformed through documentation, and how the instruction itself can become part of the work’s artistic and performative framework.

The performance for Guy Sherwin and Malcolm Le Grice’s works are presented in collaboration with Australian artist group Teaching and Learning Cinema (TLC), who document and archive performance methodologies so that ephemeral photochemical works can be reconstructed and re-enacted for future audiences.

The performances will be followed by an artist Q&A and discussion.

This programme is presented under the “Clusters” strand of YAM AT SAM (28 Aug 2026 – 31 Jan 2027), comprising expanded cinema performances by local and regional artists that extend the language of moving images beyond fixed screens, using projection, performance, sound and physical space.

Programme Credits
Organiser: Singapore Art Museum
Artist: Aditya H. Martodiharjo
Collaborators: Rizki Lazuardi, SA3A, Mark Chua, Lam Li Shuen, and Teaching and Learning Cinema (TLC)
Supported by: Objectifs Centre for Photography and Film
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YAM at SAM

YAM AT SAM is a programming collaboration between Singapore Art Museum and artists Mark Chua and Lam Li Shuen of the artist-run analogue film lab Film Nerve. The collective will present a series of live performances, hands-on workshops and regional screenings focused on analogue photochemical experimentation and expanded cinema.

Handing Over Horror Film – essay by Luisa Greenfield

In 2024, TLC participated in a panel discussion led by the good folks at LaborBerlin (Germany) about expanded cinema re-enactment. The event was called “Unburdened Recollections: Considering the Expanded Cinema Archive”, and it was part of EMAF, the European Media Arts Festival.

We were joined by Malcolm Le Grice in the discussion, and we talked about our collaboration in “handing over” Malcolm’s Horror Film 1 (1971) so that it can be performed by others. This was all part of a research project that LaborBerlin was involved in, called SPECTRAL (which stands for Spatial, Performative & Expanded Cinematics).

Here’s a description of the panel discussion:

With Babeth Mondini-VanLoo, Simona Monizza, Cinzia Nistico, Louise Curham and Lucas Ihlein (Teaching and Learning Cinema)
Moderation: Céline Ruivo

Together with the curators and artists of the second edition of SPECTRAL. Unburdened Recollections, we will talk about the pieces shown, the process of their performance and the work involved in their research and reconstruction. At the same time, we would like to discuss issues related to the documentation, archiving and distribution of Expanded Cinema, as well as the ethical dimensions of the reconstruction and presentation of works in this field.

(More info about the EMAF-SPECTRAL event here as a PDF.)

Now the SPECTRAL team has produced a very handsome book, with an essay about our work with Malcolm Le Grice, Cinzia Nistico, and Betija Zvejniece. Here is a PDF of Luisa’s essay.

Malcolm’s breath track for Horror Film 1 – a digital preservation conundrum

Tomorrow Sun 4 April, there will be a performance of Malcolm Le Grice’s Horror Film 1 at the Courtisane Festival in Belgium. (Aside: I see a program by Audrey Lam of the work of Corinne and Arthur Cantrill was shown by Courtisane last year – great to see, I’m not aware of it travelling widely in Australia unfortunately).

Cinzia Nistico has worked with Betija Zvejniece for the last few years making performances. This time Betija is making this performance supported by one of Courtisane’s 2026 curators, Erwin van ’t Hart. It’s in the program Chronochromatic Measures 2. Erwin is the curator of the program in collaboration with LABO BxL?—?artist-run filmlab in Brussels.

On page 101 of the Courtisane program, you’ll find Betija and Horror Film 1 https://www.courtisane.be/sites/default/files/Catalogus%202026_BW_mail.pdf [Here is another link to the Courtisane Catalogue]

In 2013 Lucas and I visited Malcolm in Devon. He gave us an audio file on CD of a breath track. My recollection is that he told us he used this recording sometimes, he created the breathing track quite a few different ways. What he was clear about is that the breathing comes in before the performer starts, he used the breath track to get in the head space to perform. Erwin is very keen to use Malcolm’s track for tomorrow’s performance so find the link below.

So what is the digital preservation/digital curation conundrum? The title in the metadata of the track is nothing to do with the breath track! The CD is clearly labelled on the outside but when I open up the file, the metadata reports that the author is Andrzej Sledz on an album titled ‘Wywieranie wplywu na ludzi’ English translation ‘Influencing people’, year 2006. I recollect Malcolm telling us nothing about Andrzej nor anything about this file title. The internet does tell me Andrzej is a filmmaker but there’s no obvious connection …

Here’s a screenshot:

Screen shot of metadata for Breath track showing Polish artist — Above: metadata for the one track on the CD …

The good news is that when I play the track, it’s Malcolm’s breath track.

Below is the track and I’ll leave some things here for Erwin:

Here’s the user’s manual link
Here’s the ‘users log book‘ to leave a note about how it all went, tips and tricks for the next performance/performer/curator

Breath track here on Soundcloud https://soundcloud.com/lcurham/horror-film-1-breathing-track (unfortunately, I can’t upload the AIFF-C into WordPress)

Aditya Martodiharjo makes a performance of Horror Film 1 at Big River, Kanchanaburi, Thailand Sat 13 Dec 2025

Today Adit from Lab Laba Laba is going to make a performance of Horror Film 1. The performance is happening in the Big River film meeting organised by Richard and Dianna of Artits Film Workshop/Nanolab, leaders in the artist-run film labs community. Tonight’s performance is happening in the old paper mill in Kanchanaburi, Thailand, day 4 of this extraordinary gathering of film lab members and film maker-artists from all around the region. Check out the attendees list and you’ll see people from Taiwan, India, Australia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, China, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Japan …

Dusting off: the Peter Mudie Archives

peter mudie archives flyer

Dusting off: the Peter Mudie Archives
WHEN: Thurs Dec 4, 2025, 11am-12:30pm
WHERE: UWA EZONE North 109
WHO: All welcome!
ORGANISERS: A/Prof Jo Law, Dr Paul Boyé, A/Prof Lucas Ihlein, Prof Eleanor Suess, Dr Louise Curham, Dr Lee Kinsella, with support from Peter Mudie’s family and the AAANZ conference.

In 1993, the late Peter Mudie curated Dusting off the Other. Peter borrowed 16mm experimental film prints from around the world and showed them at the Film and Television Institute in Fremantle. Over three months, the weekly screenings bent the brains and bodies of the local film art community, and students studying art and architecture at UWA.

Peter introduced experimental film practice to the undergraduate curriculum at UWA, and his teaching had a huge impact on many emerging artists over nearly three decades. The viewing of historical works was combined with discussions of the film medium, and the social, cultural, and political contexts of their making. Students were provided with equipment, facilities, and time to experiment with materials. Physical participation and social interactions in film workshops created deep connections within the cohort.

This roundtable discussion focuses on the research, teaching, legacies, and archives of Peter Mudie. Everyone is invited to join us for a “remembering circle” where our direct experiences are shared, and Peter’s legacy is honoured.

metalux logo

BONUS! METALUX SCREENING:
WHERE: ___gs Shop 13, 375 William Street, Boorloo 6000.
WHEN: December 4th, 6 – 9 pm

‘Metalux’, curated by Jo Law and Redmond Bridgeman, and facilitated by Paul Boyé, is a series of experimental cameraless films and experimental video from 1990’s Western Australia. These works represent a scene of cinematic experimentation with materialist methodologies, influenced by the late Peter Mudie. The program considers perception construction, identity formation, and structures of consciousness through an investigation of the material of film.

More info on METALUX screening is on instagram here.

Dusting Off: The Peter Mudie Archives – Flyer PDF

Line Describing a Cone – Jess’ experience

line describing a cone - a panorama - by jess — A panorama by Jess which I think really captures the feeling in the room – embodied experimentation, fuzzy immersion…

When we shared Line Describing a Cone with the students and staff at UOW, we were joined by Jess. She’s a former student of mine who often attends things in an “unofficial” capacity – and this ambiguous role – an insider-outsider – is something that contributes to her valuable insights. Jess’ observations are always welcome and generous, and she often sees things that those of us who are more “embedded insiders” will miss. True to form, soon after we presented the Cone, Jess emailed through this deeply felt and finely described account of her experience. She kindly said she would be happy for us to publish it here. – Lucas
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Line Describing A Cone – some reflections from events at the Drill Hall Gallery and the University of Wollongong

What follows is a report back on the event on Sat 20 Sep at the Drill Hall Gallery, Canberra and today in the theatre in room G04 in building 29 at University of Wollongong.

To my mind, both of these events have been a success but in different ways. The black room at UOW was very kind to the work. Using a standard 50mm lens made the line as sharp as possible, there was a slight shine to the black wall which also made the projection stand out. The throw was long (c. 20 m) which felt spacious and gave plenty of room for the audience of students and academics to get into and around the beam.
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CONE & BULB – event info

When: Saturday 20 September, 6.30-8pm
Venue: Drill Hall Gallery, ANU Canberra
Attendance is free, bookings required: Register here

line describing a cone 2015 kandos [Anthony McCall’s Line Describing a Cone (1973) presented at CEMENTA Festival in Kandos, 2015. Photo by Alex Wisser]

CONE + BULB – an evening of landmark Expanded Cinema is a presentation by Australian artist group Teaching and Learning Cinema (Lucas Ihlein and Louise Curham). Closely aligned with the Drill Hall Light Source exhibition’s focus on the technologies of cinema projection, we offer two groundbreaking works from the early days of the London Film-makers Co-op.
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Collecting and Preserving New Media and Performance Art (with Pip and Libby)

Pip Laurenson with film scanner — Pip Laurenson at UCL with the high-tech celluloid film scanner

While in England, I (Lucas) was lucky enough to visit Pip Laurenson and Libby Ireland at University College London. They have a whole program which tackles the philosophical and practical challenges of conserving media art and performative art. In the photo above, you can see Pip showing me a very fancy celluloid film scanning device, used for transferring 35mm or 16mm films to high-resolution digital video files.

In the same room (I wish I had taken a photo!) there was a pile of sample video formats – ranging from U-Matic, Beta, VHS, mini-DV, DVD etc. One of the big questions for the conservation of moving image work is when and how to transfer from one format to another – and the aesthetic considerations of such transfers.

With conservation decisions about media artworks, there aren’t really any right or wrong answers – much of this is done on a case-by-case basis. A lot depends on the artists’ stated intentions, alongside experienced judgements about the most important things to prioritise about a particular artwork (Louise and I refer to these as the work’s “DNA”).

Conservator Libby Ireland with artwork undergoing conservation

In the conservation lab at UCL, Libby showed me this artwork by pioneering kinetic artist Liliane Lijn. It’s called Cosmic Flares III (1966).

The work consists of a painted timber frame, a perspex panel with a pattern of dots made of small polymer lenses (a bit like contact lenses for your eyes), and a set of incandescent light bulbs set into the frame edge. The light bulbs turn on and off in different combinations to create an ever changing kinetic light sculpture.

The light bulbs were very specifically chosen for the work, which was made in the 1960s. Of course, these bulbs are no longer commercially available, so the challenge for the conservator is to work with the artist (who is still alive), the collector who owns the work, and various lightbulb manufacturers to come up with a solution. Possible solutions could include:

to commission the fabrication of bespoke incandescent lightbulbs to match the originals;
to reverse engineer the bulbs so that they have the same outer shell but with an LED insert;
to start from scratch and remake the whole artwork with new bulbs;
to try out some other solution.

In the end, what decision is made will depend on a range of overlapping factors:

how flexible the artist is in allowing the work to evolve into new technological formats;
how expensive the new lightbulbs are (and how much the artwork’s owner is prepared to stump up);
the quality of light that any replacement bulbs have, relative to the originals;
and what “meaning” those specific bulbs had in the original work.

There are a lot of factors and the solution is always going to be an experiment, and an opportunity for learning.

While we (Pip, Libby, and I) were talking, we reflected on the fact that the practice-based research processes underpinning conservation are dialogical – they involve a lot of conversations, and these conversations can generate fascinating stories which, if shared with an audience, can enrich our experience of the work. That’s why it’s great that Pip and Libby are so diligent in publishing the stories of their work in collecting and conserving new media and performance art. You can see some of their articles here and here.